The message of psychic science to mothers and nurses. : By Mary Boole

CAUTION

Do not write in this book or mark it with
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sachusetts, Chapter 208, Section 83.

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MAR 12

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B P L FORM NO. 609: 5.4.27;250M.

THE

MESSAGE OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE

TO

MOTHERS AND NURSES.

MAKY BOOLE.

LO^DO^ :

TRUBN JiR & CO., lul HILL.

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[All ri'jhtr rwvred. J

Fellowship of spirits bright,
Crowned with laurel, clad with light,
From what labours are ye sped,
By what common impulse led,
With what deep remembrance bound,
'Mid the mighty concourse round,

That ye thus together stand,

An inseparable band ?

Mortal ! well hast thou divined
What the chains that strongest bind ;
For the free unfettered soul
Bows to no enforced control ;
Sympathy of feelings shared,
Deeds achieved, and perils dared,
These to spirits are — beyond
Time and place — the noblest bond.

All who felt the sacred flame
Rising at oppression's name,
All who toiled for equal laws,.

DEDICA TION.

vii

All who loved the righteous cause,
All whose world-embracing span
Bound to them each brother man

Are upon the spirit-coast

An indissoluble host.

All who with a pure intent
Were on Nature's knowledge bent,
Watched the comet's wheeling flight,
Traced the subtle web of light,
And the wide dominion saw
Of the universal law,

In this land of souls agree
With a deep-felt sympathy.

All that to the love of truth
Gave the fervour of their youth,
Then for others spread the store
Of their rich and studious lore,
Bringing starry wisdom down
To the peasant and the clown,

Are with us in spirit-land,

An inseparable band.

Whether they were known to fame,
Whether silence wrapt their name,
Whether dwellers in the strife
Or the still and cloistered life •

b

DEDICATION.

If with pure and humble thought
For the good alone they wrought,
When the earthly life is done,
In the heavenly they are one.

And their souls together twine
In a fellowship divine,
And they see the ages roll
Onward to their destined goal,
Dark with shadows of the past,
Till the morning come at last,
And an Eden bloom again
For the weary sons of men.

GEORGE BOOLE.

PREFACE.

More than twenty years ago a few ladies, alarmed at the
tempest of discussion about all things human and divine
which threatened to sweep them from their accustomed
anchorage, asked me to help them to find out whether
anything was left which we might still venture to believe
without finding ourselves in antagonism with something
else which seemed to have equal claims to be considered
true. The then almost new theory of Evolution on the
one hand, and, on the other hand, the marvellous tales
which were being told of spirits appearing at stances,
seemed to be considered by the critics of the day so con-
trary, both to each other and to all that had hitherto been
considered sacred or reasonable, that these ladies almost
felt as though the thought-world were reverting to chaos.
In answer to their appeal the following lectures in their
original form were written.

Since they were first delivered, I have had assistance
in rendering them more complete. Medical men of all
the different "pathies" have been kindly willing to help
me in calming the minds of perplexed women by leading
them to see that the most important part of any new

X

PREFACE.

truth is not always that which at first excites the most
discussion ; that a force which was spiritual when we
were ignorant of the laws of its operation does not become
unspiritual because we have discovered a few of those
laws ; and that knowledge which was divine when it was
vague and partial, is not necessarily made "Satanic" by
an effort being made to render it more complete and
accurate. It would be pleasant to express my gratitude
to those who have assisted me ; but as I prefer that the
faults of my compilation should be attributed to myself
alone. I will content myself with tendering the thanks of
myself and my hearers to all who have aided us in our
inquiry.

The Evolution controversy, so far as the unscientific
are concerned with it, is practically at an end. No one
now supposes that any serious moral issues depend on our
being able to define with precision the difference between
" varieties " and " true species." But the difficulty which
we felt so keenly twenty years ago is not at an end ;
truths are still manifold ; and it is still hard to keep up
our faith in the principle that Truth is One.

A society has lately been formed, called the Society
for Psychical Eesearch,1 which announces itself as will-
ing to receive and examine, and as far as possible to
classify, evidence on such subjects as thought-reading,
clairvoyance, apparitions, and haunted houses. It is
not difficult to foresee that the future history of this
new movement will in many respects repeat the ex-
perience of the past. The leaders, many of whom are
1 The rooins of the society are at 14 Dean's Yard, Westminster.

PREFACE.

XI

men of unquestioned ability, will pursue their course
in a spirit of calm and patient inquiry, equally un-
moved by the satire and antagonism, and by the over-
excited curiosity and too ready belief, which will
seethe around them. They will combine and utilise
the work of isolated observers ; ffftd in due time the
world at large will profit greatly by their labours. But
meanwhile a terrible amount of quite needless suffering
will be caused to those who take no part in the move-
ment, by the mere unsettling of their ordinary habits
of thought. And the occasion may perhaps not be
inopportune to remind young women who have not
the leisure or the aptitude for systematic investigation,
of the same principles which were so much forgotten by
unscientific readers in the first shock of surprise caused
by the publication of the " Origin of Species."

January 1SS3.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. " PAGE

I. THE FORCES OF NATURE, 3

II. ON DEVELOPMENT, AND ON INFANTILE FEVER AS

A CRISIS OF DEVELOPMENT, . . . 3 1

III. ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS, . . 6 1

IV. ON THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND

THEOLOGY, . . . . . 113

V. THOUGHT-READING, . . . . .129

VI. ON HOMOEOPATHY, . . . . -155

VII. CONCLUSION, . . . . . .217

APPENDIX : —

I. ON PHRENOLOGY, . . . .251

II. LIST OF BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER

STUDY, . . . . .261

NOTES, ....... 263

EKKATUM.
Page 133, line 18, for " line " read " life."

A

"Fearfully and wonderfully made."

"Mensch und Glied dieser Geist- und Gott-erfiillten Welt" —

Strauss.

" Where shall wisdom be found? . . . When He made a decree for
the rain, and a way for the lightning of His thunder, then did He
see it and declare it ; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man He said : Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding."

" Whatever we intrust to Nature's keeping, she
Will beautify a thousand times for our
Enlarged perception at some future hour.
******

And if from youth we walk in her ways free
And unreproved, her footsteps to explore,
The music of our own hearts then will be
With her eternal music blent still more,
And clearer felt, not distinct, as before,
But needful parts of one full harmony,
Wrhere what one wants the other doth supply."

— Ellison.

CHAPTER I.

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

You have asked me to give you an account of the opinions
really held by some of those authors whose views you
have seen caricatured in Punch and censured in religious
periodicals. The subjects on which you specially ques-
tioned me were the speculations of Mr. Darwin, and the
real or pretended discoveries of mesmerists, spiritualists,
homeopathists, and phrenologists. But a little reflection
will, I think, convince you, that if I pretended to give
you, in a few conversations, the result of the lifelong
labours of a succession of earnest and clever men, I could
in reality only succeed in puzzling you, and in proving
my own unfitness to act as the interpreter of any serious
thinker whatever. It will be, I think, more to the purpose
if I endeavour to put into your hands an end of the
golden thread which, as it seems to me, binds all science
together, giving us a clue through its intricate mazes,
bridging over its awful chasms, and enabling us to walk
fearlessly, even where we can see no light. If you like
it, I will afterwards try to tell you what I believe to be
the true meaning of some of the real or supposed revela-

4

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

tioris of modern investigation : but my main object will
be to show you how you may, throughout your studies,
make facts speak for themselves, and get help from books
instead of being confused by them.

In the first chapter of the Bible fffl read that the earth
was originally without form and void. Next it is said
that the " Spirit of God " moved upon the face of the
waters. And throughout the Old Testament it is easy
to see that the writers attributed the settling down of
things in general, the ordering of the heavens, the coming
up of dry land from under the sea, the clearing away of
mists and vapours, and the production of life upon the
earth, to the action of this Spirit (or Word) of God upon
the chaos of matter. And not only so, but they evidently
believed this living Word or Spirit to be continually
present throughout creation, at every rising of sun or
moon or star, in all cosmical changes, at every birth of
man or beast, at every recovery of man or beast from
sickness, in all growth, in all life, in all enjoyment ; and
to be at each moment the indispensable preserver of every
living thing from decay.

"Ok I of course," you will perhaps say: "if God did
not do things, they would not be done. If He had not
willed things to be, they would not be. He set them
going as He chose : and if He chose to take away the
forces by which they go, they would stop. In some
sense all that happens is His doing. " Ton say this. The
Bible says nothing of the sort. It says, not only that
God willed things to be done, but that the " Spirit of
God " was the agency by which they were done. At
least, if it does not say that, I do not know what it does
say.

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

5

Xow, then, without entering into any theological dis-
cussions, will you allow me for a few moments to assume
that the expressions " Spirit of God " or " "Word of God,"
whenever they occur in the Bible, mean that force (be the
nature of it what it may) by which God acts upon matter
and quickens it into living forms ? The words, no doubt,
mean more than that ; but let us assume for the present
that they mean that, at least.

The object of making such a hypothesis is this : Sup-
posing it to be a true one, it follows that whatever we
can learn from the Bible about the Spirit of God will
give us hints for the study of Nature ; and whatever we
learn from Xature herself will help us to understand the
mode of operation of the Spirit.

Xow, if you were to ask a scientific man what it was
that organised matter into living forms, he would pro-
bably reply that it was " force." And if you asked him
what he meant by " force," he might answer you by say-
ing, " Electricity is one form of force, for instance, and
magnetism is another."

There are men, professing to be scientific, who, if you
asked them what it was that organised and quickened
matter, would reply, "It is only force, nothing else." But,
so far as my small experience of books and authors has
gone, it seems to me that the more a man really knows,
the less he is inclined to assert that anything is " only " any
other thing ; and that whoever does make such an asser-
tion is usually on the brink of some unscientific blunder.
Leaving, therefore, the " only " out of the question, it
seems pretty clear that one of the agencies by which
matter is acted upon and organised is electricity, and that
another is magnetism. But the Bible says th*t it is the

6

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Spirit of God. Is there any contradiction here ? Not
necessarily so, I think.

But it is clear that neither electricity nor magnetism,
in the forms commonly called by those names, do all the
work of creation.

Supposing our hypothesis to be a correct one, that there
is one Spirit or force which supplies the vis viva or
motive power for all life, and growth, and movement, it
is clear that this Spirit bears, in our ordinary language,
different names according to the nature of its varying
action upon matter. Thus, when it acts on steel-filings
and collects them round a loadstone, we call it magnetism;
when it acts upon vapour and collects it into thunder-
clouds, we call it electricity ; when it acts upon planets
and groups them around a sun, we call it gravitation ;
when it acts on mineral solutions and forms out of them
crystals, we call it crystalline force; when it acts upon
inorganic or decomposed substances and converts them
into plants, we call it vegetable life ; when it acts upon
the food of animals and converts it into living flesh, we
call it by various names, of which animal vitality is per-
haps the one in most common use.

But all true scientific men acknowledge that these
various words are mere names for a force, or for various
forces, the essential nature of which they do not in the
least understand. Faraday, for instance, has been heard
to remark, " I can tell you something of the laws by
which electricity acts ; but what it is in itself I know
no more than a child." Now this which Faraday con-
fessed that he (speaking of himself merely as a scientific
investigator) could not know, is just what the writers of
the Bible (according to the interpretation of their words

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

7

which we have assumed to he correct) professed that they
did know. They taught (at least I think they taught)
that all creative force is the Spirit of a living God.

Mind, I do not assert that these various forces arc
different manifestations of the same force or Spirit. I
only ask you to let me proceed for the present on the
assumption that they are so. I myself believe them to
be so ; I can understand neither the Bible nor the facts
of nature upon any other supposition. But I do not
want you to believe it merely because I do. I only want
you to understand what it is that I believe, and then as
we go on you will see whether you think you have any
ground for agreeing with me.

But whether these forces are the same or not, it is
quite clear that they are practically, to a certain extent,
convertible. The galvanic battery, for instance, has the
power of causing an unmagnetised iron bar to become
magnetic. And though man's power of thus converting
one force into another is very limited, it does not follow
that they are not, in Nature, interchanged to an infinite
extent.

It appears, too, pretty clear that, though we speak as
if there existed only a certain limited number of such
forces, their number is in reality infinite. Every species
of plant and of animal and of crystal has its own.
All the higher organisms at least appear to be affected
by a great variety of forces, but each is most powerfully
affected by that one which is peculiarly the life of its
species. The degree in which it is saturated, so to speak,
with this its own peculiar life, is often very much,
always more or less, affected by other circumstances ; but,
on the other hand, its power both to derive benefit from

8

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

favourable and to resist unfavourable circumstances is
derived entirely from its possession of that life. The
power of an animal to retain its vitality is more or less
affected by heat, light, electricity, etc., and is greater in
proportion as the amount which it receives of these
extraneous forces is more exactly suited to its constitu-
tion ; but no accurately adjusted amount of heat or light
or galvanism will enable an animal rxK.lv to resist the
destructive effect of the atmosphere when once the
animal vitality has left it. Again, very great heat is
injurious to our health, and, in extreme cases, fatal. But
a healthy man, it is said, can remain alive, and almost un-
injured, in an oven while a joint of meat is roasting. If
his body were dead, it would roast too, but the human
vitality casts off, to a great degree, the injurious effect of
the heat.

This vitality I suppose is the breath which God breathes
into a creature, and so makes it become a living souL
When He takes away its breath, we are told, the material
organism dies and returns to dust. What we commonly
call breath — thai is, air — is not taken away. The atmos-
phere surrounds and pervades the body still ; but some-
thing else — the spirit which God breathed into it — has
been taken away ; and therefore it is no longer capable
of feeding on the oxygen of the air.

This is a point which I want you to fix firmly in your
minds, as we shall have to recur to it by and by.
Every highly organised being is affected by a variety of
influences, which interfere more or less with each other's
action, and which would need to be accurately balanced
to ensure the highest possible state of enjoyment and of
health ; but there is always some one dominant force in

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

9

which the very life of the creature consists, and which
has, within certain limits, the power of controlling and
regulating within it the action of all the other forces
which affect it.

When we say that one set of circumstances is more
healthy than another, what we chiefly mean is, that the
former puts it into a state in which the creature's whole
system is more charged with its own peculiar vitality
than it would be under the latter. This is the measure
of the healthiness of circumstances. No treatment is in
reality health-giving to a creature, which tends on the
whole to diminish its supply of this life-force, even
though it may temporarily regulate disturbance and
relieve uneasiness. And I think you can see that if
there were any means by which Ave could directly pour a
constant supply of this vitality in upon any creature, the
use of those means would be of paramount importance to
that creature. This also I want you to remember.

Xow, so far as we can see into nature, it appears that
the action of force is always regulated by strict laws.
The law of gravitation is so simple that it comes within
the calculations of common arithmetic ; the force varies
inversely as the square of the distance between the
bodies. The laws by wThich the action of electricity is
governed are more complicated, but they fall within the
province of the higher mathematics. The laws by which
vegetative and animal life are governed do not appear
to come within the scope of any known mathematical
formulae ; but it does not follow that they are less regular
in their operation. On the contrary, nature seems to be
governed throughout by the most exact laws. There
could be neither variety nor grace if this were not so.

ro

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Does this seem to you like a paradox ? If you want to
know whether law or lawlessness has the most tendency
to produce variety and beauty, compare the evolutions
of well-trained dancers with the effect which would be
produced if the same people assembled in a room and
each ran and jumped wherever he or she chose. And
the more intricate the dance, the more necessary is it that
every step should be taken according to the prearranged
plan.

Nature then is governed by laws ; that is to say, as it
seems to me, the Spirit of God works regularly.

A young friend of mine was once trying to explain to
a pious old woman, her nurse, the movement of the
earth round the sun. The old woman, after trying in
vain to disprove this (to her) new doctrine by logical
arguments, at last entrenched herself behind a theological
one. u Well, my darling/' she exclaimed triumphantly,
"you may believe what you like, but I believe the world
is where my Divine Master placed it." Now for centuries
past people have been putting science and religion into
opposition, just as this old woman did, and for the same
reason. We find it easy to conceive of God either as
the first cause of a system of material stability, or as the
doer of arbitrary acts ; but (our own wills being capricious
and contradictory and disorderly) Ave imagine the two
ideas of regular laws and of a constantly acting Will to
be mutually exclusive. But whether the people who
think it pious to say that not the laws of Nature but the
Will of God regulates the universe, or the people who
think it scientific to say that not the Spirit of God but
only forces animate matter, find the most warrant for
their notions, either in common sense or in Scripture,

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

1 1

you may, at your leisure, find out, if you can. It is an
inquiry in which I cannot help you at all.

Not only do all the forces which govern matter obey
laws, but a very curious analogy runs through these laws,
however different they may be, both in their expression
and in their action. And the tracing of that analogy is,
I think, by far the most interesting part of the study of
Nature.

So far we have been speaking only of the irresponsible
creation, as we call it, consisting of all organisms, from a
crystal up to a dog or monkey. It seems to me rather
an arbitrary use of words to call either a dog or a monkey
or a bee " irresponsible ; " but let that pass for the present.
We have been talking of creatures as irresponsible.

You know that some of our modern naturalists are of
opinion that man has sprung by regular descent from the
lower animals. But this idea of theirs is not the mere
product of an intellectual speculation. Whether true or
false, it is partly inspired by the instinct which has
taught poets and children in all ages to claim the brutes
as their kin. This instinct has manifested itself in many
strange ways. The metamorphoses of Koman mythology
and the Hindoo doctrine of the transmigration of souls
are perhaps, of all the forms in which it has appeared,
the two with which you are most familiar. Thoughtless
people, of course, say that such ideas are " only " super-
stitions. But, as I told you before, the more sure a man
feels that anything is " only " any other thing, the further
he is usually from the truth. Such ideas are indeed
superstitions, but they are something else besides. Men's
instincts may be distorted into false and ugly shapes, but
there is a living root of truth hidden deep down some-

1 2

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

where from which they grew. And be sure it is not for
nothing that men in all ages have believed in their
relationship with the brutes.

Men in all ages; not by any means all men. Most
people were shocked and disgusted when first they were
told that the monkeys were their own " poor relations."
But any instinct may become deadened and perverted by
disuse. Who are they who have believed in their rela-
tionship with Nature ? Poets and children always, and
among naturalists, I think, chiefly those who were most
observant of living creatures. Just those, you see, who
knew most about the matter, who had lived most in com-
munion with living Nature, and in whom, therefore, the
part of the mind by which man holds communion with
Nature was most exercised and most keen.

If a hundred clever men were kept for years in a half-
darkened room poring over books, and then suddenly
turned out upon a mountain in the full blaze of the sun,
their deepest reasonings about what was likely to be or
what ought to be before their dazzled eyes would go for
nothing against the testimony of one hardy mountain
child who could not spell, though the latter would pro-
bably make endless mistakes if he tried to reason upon
the causes of the phenomena which he perceived. Why
so ? Why, the child's eyes would be exercised and accus-
tomed to mountain objects. And so, if poets and children
feel a relationship with Nature, be sure there is such a
relationship, though their way of explaining it may be
very absurd and false. Xow, if all the various forms of
vitality are, as I believe, different manifestations of the
Spirit of the Great Father of Spirits, that would of itself
account for the relationship which man feels with Xature ;

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

13

though I do not say that there is not a more immediate
and physical relationship as well.

One tie, at all events, binds us to the brutes — a likeness
of physical organisation. A great part of what we know
about our own bodily selves we have learned by dissecting,
and often alive, beings which are literally bone of our
bone, flesh of our flesh, and many of them brain of our
brain, with hearts, nerves, thoughts, affections, marvel-
lously like our own. If you have read anything at all of
physiology, you know how true this is. I am not going,
however, to enter upon the study of physiology with you ;
and I only mention the subject for the sake of a few
significant facts, the knowledge of which has been bought
dear for us by those inferior creatures to whom we are so
anxious to refuse all share in our own hopes of immor-
tality and blessedness.

Every nerve which has for its function the production
either of physical sensation or of voluntary motion has
one end (its peripheral extremity) either in the skin, or
in one of the organs of the senses, or in some internal
organ (such as the lungs, &c), and the other end in some
portion of what is called the automatic brain. The auto-
matic brain consists of the internal portions of the head,
together with the brain-like spinal cord, or marrow, which
runs down the backbone. Thus one nerve goes from
the spinal cord and acts on the muscles which produce
respiration.1 Another goes from a ganglion in the middle
of the head to the eye, and, when stimulated by light,
produces the sensation of sight ; and so on. A stimulus
applied to the peripheral extremity of a nerve produces
its appropriate motion or sensation by what is called
1 Note 1.

•4

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

reflex action. That is to say, one part of the nerve being
stimulated at its peripheral extremity, the other conveys
notice of the fact to that portion of the automatic brain
to which it is attached ; and the automatic brain being
thereby excited, immediately discharges a supply of nervous
energy, which produces, at the peripheral extremity, the
required sensation or muscular contraction. But it is
possible to force the automatic brain to act, and to send
nervous energy down the nerves, by stimulus applied
directly to itself, either artificially or by the action upon
it of the outer brain. When you draw back your foot
instinctively because it is tickled, the nerves of the foot
move the muscles by reflex action. When a galvanic
shock applied to the spine convulses a dead leg, it does
so by applying an artificial stimulus to the spinal cord.
When you move your foot because you will to do it, the
stimulus is given directly to the automatic brain b^ the
outer brain, of which we have next to speak.

Whal thought and emotion may be in their own essen-
tial nature we can at the best but dimly guess. It is one
of those questions the answer to which every man must
seek for himself within that inner sanctuary into which
each one must enter alone. But, so far as science has to
do with them, they may be said so to manifest themselves
as, I might almost say, to consist in the excitement pro-
duced by a certain form of force in a particular portion
of the frame which is specially fitted to receive it, and be
stimulated by it. This thinking and feeling organ, to
which the name of the brain is often given, fits like a cap
over the automatic brain of birds and mammals. In
fishes 1 it appears to be almost totally wanting.

i Note 2.

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

There are people who profess not to believe in phreno-
logy ; also there are people who profess not to believe in
mesmerism. But I hardly think any serious man now-a-
days professes to disbelieve either that the healthy action
of the human nervous system depends in some way on
the state of the mind, or that human beings, especially
the nervously organised, often affect one another's minds
in some way quite independent of visible or audible
signs. So I shall express no opinion about the truth of
phrenology, but only say that, if not true, it was well
invented ; for it answers as a summary or skeleton of all
that is known on the subject of brain-action. And its
terminology is convenient. I shall take leave to speak as
if it were true, just to save the trouble of using round-
about language ; only begging you to remember that the
best of the so-called phrenologists were men who observed
human beings, and that their observations on character
and the results of conduct are true, whatever you may
think of their theories.

Each portion of the outer or conscious brain is recep-
tive (so say phrenologists) of its own peculiar class of
thoughts or feelings, and is unable to receive (or produce)
any others. When you study Euclid or cast up your
accounts, the organ under the outer part of your eyebrow
is at work. When you think of your relations and feel a
mere instinctive impulse to long to be near them as such,
or when you caress a baby for the mere pleasure of doing
it, the back of your brain is active. When you feel
reverence for an earnest teacher or pity for a suffering
child, the top of your brain is brought into action. The
science which has for its subject the whole outer, or
thinking and feeling brain, is called phrenology or psycho-

1 6 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

logy. The two words are not, it is true, quite equivalent ;
they refer to the same subject treated in two different ways.

Now if you have read " Combe's Physiology" (a work
with which I would advise every mother to make herself
acquainted), you must, I should think, have noticed with
what care he distinguishes between the physical nervous
force which is generated in the automatic brain and the
nervous power wThich is communicated to it from the true
or conscious brain ; and how earnestly he impresses on
his readers that (within certain limits) the health giving
or exhausting 1 quality of muscular exertion depends, in
man, upon the motive of action which is present to the
mind, i.e., upon the state of the thinking brain. It is
found, in fact (so say the phrenologists), that upon the
activity of certain phrenological organs depends, in great
measure, the supply of that higher force or nervous
energy by which not only are the other brain organs
stimulated to healthy action, but which is able also to
supplement to a great degree the want of natural physical
power and muscular tone throughout the frame. And
not only does this higher force supplement the nervous
energy generated in the automatic brain when deficient ;
it also controls the discharge of that energy when abun-
dant. But, that it may do this, the thinking brain must
be in good working order.

You are, of course, well aware that although all parts
of the human organism are so related to each other that
an injury to or the total inactivity of any one part
affects, in some slight degree at least, the well-being of
the whole, yet some organs are far more essential than
others to the vitality of the frame. For instance, the
1 Note 3.

THE FORCES OF NATURE. 17

stimuli afforded by light through the eyes and by sound
through the ears are each in a measure good for the
health ; but a blind or deaf man may live to old age,
and even (if the faculties which he possesses are properly
cultivated) enjoy very good health of body and mind ;
and there are states of disease in which silence and dark-
ness are most beneficial. But without the stimulus sup-
plied by oxygen to the lungs no man could live an hour ;
few men could live a fortnight, or preserve their health
from serious injury for half that period, without food.
Again, the regular exercise of every muscle in turn is,
under normal conditions, decidedly advantageous. But
an adult whose chest is already well developed may enjoy
a very fair share of health without any muscular exercise
beyond that of walking. And in many cases of disease
or accident it is highly desirable to keep a particular limb
perfectly still for weeks together. But no matter how
diseased the heart may be, you must not, if you could,
stop its action, or even lower it beyond a certain point, or
the result would be certainly fatal. As a rule, the higher
the type of animal, the greater the number of its " vital
functions" (i.e., of those the continuance of which is
essential to its vitality), and the more quickly fatal is the
cessation of any one of them. An alligator, for instance, has
been known to live for some time after being decapitated ;
but any mammal or bird would die almost instantly on
the spinal cord being severed at the neck. But though a
certain amount of activity of the stomach and lungs is
absolutely essential to the life of any mammal or bird,
man included, yet it is nevertheless true, that whereas
in a young child, or an animal of low type, the physical
functions supply nearly all the vitality, the higher the

B

uS

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

animal and the older the child, the more the health
seems to depend on vitality supplied through the brain.
Now there is one part of the brain, or one portion of the
mind, if you prefer that way of putting it, the action of
which is found to communicate nervous energy to the
whole frame very much more rapidly and certainly than*
any other portion. This part is technically termed the
"moral and religious" region, and this name I shall
adopt as a convenient designation. But it is necessary
that you should understand clearly that its distinguishing
feature consists not in its being related to any particular
class of objects or ideas, but in the fact that its action
always involves some form or other of voluntary self-
renunciation. Its central and most powerful organ is
called Veneration. Why this particular function or por-
tion of the brain should be capable of receiving vitality
for, and imparting it to, the whole nervous system so
much faster than any other part, we do not know ; or
at least, if we in our inner souls know, we cannot tell.
The ultimate reasons of things can be told, perhaps, by
God to man, but never by one man to another. But we
do know and we can tell that the fact is so ; and phreno-
logists think that it seems to be somehow connected with
and brought about by means of this other fact, viz., that
the human skull is sutured across this part of the brain.
And as long as men have had skulls — I believe as lon<'
as mammals have had skulls — their skulls have been con-
stantly sutured in the same place.

You know that muscular exercise is generally necessary
to enable you to take in a proper quantity of food and
air. But you know, too, how dangerous it would be to
take exercise if you were starving, or if your lungs were

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

19

in any way prevented from expanding pretty freely.
Well, the exercise, in some form or other, of the intel-
lectual functions of the brain is necessary in most cases
to keep the moral ones in full play. But to use the
former without the latter is just working your nervous
system hard, and starving or stifling it. And the analogy
between the two cases is all the more complete, because,
during muscular exercise, a certain, though very insuffi-
cient, amount of oxygen finds its way into the system
through the skin. The skin all over the body takes in
some oxygen, though much less than it wants for its own
use. The lungs only are capable of taking in as much
as they want for themselves, and plenty besides to spare ,
for the rest of the body. Just so, the use of any part of
the brain vitalises the nervous system ; but the so-called
moral faculties only, as a rule, do so fast enough to keep
up health in man.

And now you will be able to understand what I meant
when I bade you observe, that if we could directly pour
in upon any creature a supply of that vital force in which
its life consists, it would be of special importance to that
creature to do so. Food will not give vitality till it has
been digested. Now we do not always know the kind
of food which to a particular constitution will prove most
thoroughly digestible and most nourishing. And when
we do know the right kind of food, we cannot always
get it. And if we give overmuch of the wrong kind,
with a view of increasing the vitality, we not only com-
pletely fail in our object, but also impair the digestive
powers for the future. Plenty of oxygen is essential to
full health, but it is not always to be had without
exposure to an injurious amount of cold. Indeed, it is

20

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

not always to be had at alL Light is not always attain-
able ; and when it is, it may be too glaring, and accom-
panied by too great heat. What suits one patient does
not suit another; and in fact our best laid plans are
crossed and checked in countless ways. But earnestness
about an object out of oneself never fails to impart life
directly to the nervous system.

Do not forget, however, that the greater the charge of
vitality, the worse the effect of any misuse of it. This
is a complicated subject, and one we shall have to go into
if ever we take up the subject of practical sick-nursing.
There is endless difficulty in keeping moral emotion pure,
in regularising the action of the moral sense itself, and
in educating the rest of the mind to work in subjection
to it. But the ideas which I want you to seize and
comprehend just now are that the supply of that particu-
lar force which it is the especial province of the thinking
brain to receive is simply unfailing and inexhaustible,
and that it is the essentially human force, standing to an
adult human creature in much the same relation as gravi-
tation does to a planetary system, or crystalline force to
a crystal : and that it comes chiefly on conditions not
merely intellectual, but more properly speaking moral.

Mind, we are talking science now. I am not giving
expression to any religious belief or pious platitude, but
telling you what I believe to be simply a fact, and one
of the fundamental facts on which biologic science rests,
when I say, that whereas the amount of oxygen is in
many places, of food nearly everywhere, insufficient for
the full supply of all the creatures who want it, that
peculiar force which it is the proper business of the brain
to take in is, so far as we can judge, everywhere abso-

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

21

lutely inexhaustible in quantity. And, moreover, no
devices of man (in the way of building, &c.) seem to
have any great effect in keeping it out ; and no state of
the weather affects its intensity in any very serious
degree. There does, however, seem to be evidence that
any very unusual and widespread religious excitement
among human beings is usually preceded or accompanied
by some of the more physical manifestations of cosmical
disturbance, such as earthquakes, violent hurricanes,
thunderstorms, &c.

When you caress a friend, some influence flows from
you to her. The more you love each other, the faster
and the more pleasantly it flows, the more en rapport you
are to each other. Some people are much more gifted
than others with the power of thus influencing other men
or even animals ; and this faculty may be increased by
practice. Some men think they can do good by passing
a current of their own vitality down a benumbed limb,
or even feeding in a temporary supply of it to repair exces-
sive waste. This they call " Mesmerism," from the name
of one of the first men who seriously attempted to transfer
the subject from the domain of jugglement and supersti-
tion to that of sober scientific inquiry. Every mother
unconsciously mesmerises her children, every nurse her
patient, every teacher his pupils ; and this unconscious
mesmerism is in all ordinary cases unquestionably more
healthy than any other. It is nevertheless desirable that
those who have the charge of children or of the sick
should know something of the laws which govern the
action of human beings on each other. But of all the
sins which men commit, none fill me with such horror
as the irreverent tampering with this most awful power.

22

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

For, if I understand mesmeric science at all, the key-
note of it all, the fact, but for our knowledge of which
all the other facts of mesmerism would form one chaos of
contradictions, which we should be incapable of reducing
to a science at all, is this : Between that Person or
Power whom we call God and every human being there
exists every relation in which it is possible for one human
being to stand to another. He actually is the Father,
Mother, Husband, Brother, Master, Healer, Teacher,
Friend of all mankind ; and every form of mesmerism
and biology is an imitation, conscious or unconscious, of
some portion of His direct influence on the nervous
system of man.

Now as to what is commonly called spiritualism.

In ordinary conditions the nerves receive and transmit
the life-force, the human magnetism, of which we have
been speaking, unconsciously, as it were. A man feels
conscious of a general sense of well-being when it flows
regularly and in full tide, of discomfort when its flow is
checked : but of the actual flowing of it he feels no
more than you do at this moment of the influx of air into
your lungs, or of the coursing of your blood through your
veins. In certain states, however, the passing of the
vital force produces a distinct physical sensation. The
precise nature of the sensation will depend on the precise
set of nerves which is in a sensitive condition. A sensi-
tive subject will tell you at one time that she " saw a
vision," at another time that some unseen person " spoke
to her," or that " spirit hands touched " her. The mean-
ing of this I believe to be sometimes that her nerves of
sight, of hearing, or of touch, were in a condition in which

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

23

the passing of force along them excited them in the same
sort of way as, under normal conditions, they would only
have been excited by the reflection of light, the vibration
of particles of air, or the contact of some material sub-
stance at the peripheral extremity. I dare not say that it
means only this ; but I do believe that it means this at
least, and that it will be well for us to reflect upon the
fact that it does mean" this. The angels or the spirits of
the departed may indeed be about the " medium " in her
hours of inspiration ; but if so, they are about you and
me at all times. They may make communications to
her ; but if so, they make communications to those who
are not physically conscious of their presence. Whether
the spirits of the dead are near us or not, at least the
Great Spirit is round us, and in contact with every nerve
of our frame and every organ of our brain ; and from
Him we get light and knowledge and truth. The
spiritual fact is not created by the medium's conscious-
ness of it ; and no one has a right to say that it does not
exist for those who are not conscious of it, or that it is
not going on when no one is conscious of it. And to
those who long to "see visions and dream dreams," to
have some sensible proof of their relation to the unseen
world, I would say, " Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed, " for the thing is true whether
we see it or not.

That the phenomena of spiritualism have been of
use in calling attention to the fact that there is inter-
course between us and the spirit world there can be_ no.
doubt; but I cannot help thinking that it would be
well if spiritualists would give to discovering the laws of
healthy receptivity of inspiration some of the time which

24

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

they bestow on observing and inducing the phenomena of
conscious reception.

You see that the psalmists and prophets had anti-
cipated the discoveries of modern science in some very
remarkable ways. Psalmists and prophets found out
that the Unseen gives strength and inspires thoughts to
those who trust Him, who pray to Him, who cultivate
kindly feelings towards mankind, who renounce their
own will in obedience to His laws. They only knew
that He did so. They never thought of asking how He
did it. It was His will to do it, and that was all. Now
we know that He does it by the normal action of an
apparatus made on purpose. That does not make it the
less true that it is His will to do it. A mother's milk is
not the less a token of her goodwill to her baby because
the baby has a mouth made on purpose to take it in.

And yet just at this point an awful doubt has flashed
across many minds. A baby can see, and hear, and
touch its mother. If it doubts where its food comes
from, it has only to open its eyes and look, or put out its
hand and feel. But we can find God only in the one
way. Suppose, then, that there should be (for us, at
least) no God but forces; suppose that what we call
thought and feeling should be " only " the passing of a
magnetic current across the brain; suppose that the
Author of Nature leaves us to work the nerve-battery as
we choose or as we can, without caring what becomes of
us. The highest moral result of science, unassisted by
that higher revelation of His own nature which God
gives to His servants, is that there is around us a vital
force of which we become receptive on certain moral
conditions. Those conditions, for all that science can

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

25

prove to the contrary, might be these : That from con-
scientious motives we endeavour to do our duty to the
laws of Nature ; that we cherish hopes which may never
be realised ; that we perseveringly strive after objects
which would disappoint us if we attained them ; that we
exercise benevolence towards creatures whose Maker lets
them suffer with apparent unconcern; that we aim at
growing like 1 whatever strikes our fancy ; that we trust
in we do not know what ; and that we reverence a modi-
fication of electricity. Science has led men by a laborious
ascent up the mountain which sages of old were trying in
vain to climb, and she has shown them there — Nothing.

I do not mean that God ever leaves those who sincerely
desire to serve Him and to hold communion with Him
long alone on this giddy height. I should be sorry to
suggest to you anything so false as that. No ; to those
who have thrown themselves in the dark upon His guid-
ance He has always revealed Himself at last. But
when psychologists or phrenologists want to give an
account to others of what it is that they do mean and
believe, they seem hardly able to speak of anything but
a mighty force, which holds us in its grasp, but eludes all
our efforts to grasp it. The difficulty is a very real one ;
I feel it strongly. The study of science teaches us God's
Will ; but scientific language cannot express our thoughts
and feelings about God. And therefore let me shelter my
own confused notions and wavering faith behind the plain
statements of Him whose declarations about the invisible
world do at least carry more weight than those of any
other teacher. And this is the message that we have
received of him : —

1 Note 4.

26

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

That the Creator is not merely teaching men Love and
Truth as the appointed life of our species, but that He
is Himself that which He wills us to be ; that God is
indeed, morally and spiritually as well as physically, our
Father ; that the Divine love which we dream of is a real
feeling on the part of God, and not a mere fancy projected
from our vague yearning for some response to our own
feelings ; that the Spirit by which He is acting on our
spirits is meant to be not only the Life-giver and Teacher,
but also the Comforter ; and that whatever clouds may
gather between us and His throne, God Himself is Light,
and in Him is no darkness at all.

We assumed, you will remember, a hypothesis which I
daresay some of you may have thought a bold and start-
ling one. What we supposed was in effect nothing less
than this : That when the writers of the Bible spoke of
the Spirit of God, they meant to speak of the same thing
— the same Person, Power, Spirit, or Influence — which a
modern scientific man means to speak of when he uses the
word force ; that though they meant to give us informa-
tion which science could not give, yet their teaching and
the teaching of science refers to the same subject ; that
they and the students of " forces " are looking at the same
object, though from a different point of view.

It is, I own, a bold hypothesis ; but the question is, is it
a true or a false one? Do we find that it leads us into
truth or into error? Has it forced us, while we assumed
its truth, to put any known facts into the background?
Has it led us into contradictions or confusions ? Has it
not rather cleared away confusions and reconciled apparent
contradictions ?

For my own part, I can most honestly say that, puzzling

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

27

as the world and its problems are, they would become
infinitely darker and more perplexing to me if I lost
hold of the first article of my belief, that all life is a
manifestation of the Spirit of the unseen God.

I said above that I do not wish to impose on you any
positive opinion as to the truth of phrenology. I myself
believe that there is something in it on the whole. But
it always seems to me" rather an inversion of the right
order of things when women have positive opinions on
disputed points. It is men's business, as a rule, to decide
on facts and to make theories; a woman can often be
better employed in finding out how far those men agree who
differ on particular points ; and who suppose themselves,
or are supposed by others, to differ essentially. That
seems to be women's business, because it is one of the
things that men never seem able to do for themselves. I
have been trying to collect and compare the observations
on brain-hygiene made by such writers as Maudsley, for
instance, with the statements of phrenologists on the same
subject, and I find that they do not differ much. Allthe1
non-phrenological psychologists allow that the indulgence
of every impulse as fast as it arises is bad for the health
of both body and brain. A healthy instinct does indeed
point to what it is good for the person to do ; but obser-
vation shows that it is bad for any one to do at every
moment that to which his instinct prompts him, for no
higher reason than that he feels inclined. No one doubts
that the exercise of benevolence, hope, trust, conscien-
tiousness, imitation, perseverance, and especially venera-
tion, is healthy. And the very names of these qualities
imply the sacrifice of immediate impulses to some object
out of oneself. No medical man, and no medical book

2S

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

worthy of notice, ever expressed a doubt, so far as I know,
that the more complete and steady the education of all the
above-named faculties, the better for the health. Phre-
nologists say that these qualities reside in a part of the
brain over which the skull is sutured, and which is there-
fore more expansible and more accessible than the rest.
All I can say is, if that is not true, it is wonderfully like
truth, and acts as an excellent " working hypothesis " till
somebody provides us with a better.

This also I have observed, and it seems to me significant
and curious. Every one that ever I heard of, who tried
to exercise any sort of mysterious influence over the
minds or health of other people, has made it his business
to stimulate some of the " moral and religious" faculties
of the patient (or, as I should prefer to call them, the
organs of sacrifice). From the Apostles, who avowedly
required faith (i.e., trust) as the condition of cure, and
who certainly by implication insisted on reverence, to the
strolling quack biologiser, who makes his victims look
steadily and perse veringly at some object, thus controlling
their wandering self-impulses, this condition has, in some
form or other, been a sine qud non. And everybody who
wants to control or calm an ill-conditioned child, instinc-
tively lays a hand on the top of its head, thus, I suppose,
lending the aid of his physical local mesmerism to what-
ever stimulus he may apply by his words to the moral
organs. It will be interesting to find out, as no doubt
we some day shall, how far phrenology is true in detail ;
but meantime I should like you to fix your minds chiefly
on the things that are indisputably true, and not to be
led to waste too much force over things about which men
quarrel. I can remember a time when it was the fashion,

THE FORCES OF NATURE.

2')

in sermons and religious books, to proclaim that Phreno-
logy was essentially immoral, because it implied that man
has no duties, being the slave of his physical configuration.
At that very time Dr. Fowler told a patient in my hear-
ing (and, as I happen to know, on phrenological grounds),
that a course of life so unsuited to her tastes that in
her state of health it would probably soon prove fatal
if persevered in long without necessity, would do little
harm if entered upon from a strong sense of duty,
provided the patient would take care to bear constantly
in mind that it was also her duty not to allow her work
to worry her.

But here I must give you one caution, for want of
which the faith of many, both in science and in God, has
been shipwrecked. You are not to suppose that the mere
fact of a thing being your duty, still less the fact that
you have rashly chosen to suppose it to be your duty,
possesses any magic to enable you to do it without
suffering, or indeed to do it at all. It is only in so far as
you keep God, or duty, or some analogous motive in your
mind, that you can in any measure conquer circumstances.
And you cannot begin to control your mind at a moment's
notice. Every self-willed thought that has ever rested on
your brain has left its trace upon it, negatively in want
of power, if not positively in disease ; and be sure that,
when your time of trial comes, your sin will find you out.

I suppose all the earnest thinkers and true men that
ever lived have been led, each by his own road, to
the same blessed truth; — that the Spirit who animates
Nature does make her various forces work together for
good to them that love Him ; to all who are willing to
carry out His purposes in His own way, but most of all

30

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

to them that love Him. They have found out, too, that
she sends countless messengers to call wanderers back to
the path which He has appointed for them, just when it
seemed as though they must fly off into darkness for ever.
But as far as they have wandered, so far must they come
back, slowly, and sadly, and painfully. God sends no
angels to help men to break Nature's laws; and those
who have persuaded the world to expect them have been
either quack doctors or quack priests. The true prophets
have always tried to lead men to look in the face of
Nature, and see God reflected there.

CHAPTER II.

ON DEVELOPMENT, AND ON INFANTILE FEVER
AS A CRISIS OF DEVELOPMENT.

" The creation was made subject to vanity ... in hope."

" L'humanite fait du divin comme l'araign^e file sa toile ; la
marche du mende est enveloppee de tenebres ; mais il va vers
Dieu."— Renan.

" And he showed me a river."

CHAPTER II.

ON DEVELOPMENT, AND ON INFANTILE FEVER
AS A CRISIS OF DEVELOPMENT.

Everybody has heard of Mr. Darwin, but I fear that
many so-called educated people still know very little
about him, except that they have heard of him as the
man who teaches that our great-grandfathers were mon-
keys and our remote ancestors oysters.

Why this description should be supposed to apply
to Mr. Darwin in particular, I cannot imagine. For, in
the first place, Mr. Darwin does not say that we are
descended from monkeys exactly ; in the second place,
many people held that opinion before he could have sug-
gested it to them ; and in the third place, supposing it
should ultimately be proved that each of the great orders
of plants and of animals was made by a separate act of
creation, his theory would still be a perfectly consis-
tent and intelligible one. And, therefore, if you should
happen to have any prejudice against (what Mr. Cobden
called) acknowledging our poor relations, pray do not let
that spoil your enjoyment of one of the grandest poems
that ever was written (the " Origin of Species "), or prevent
you from trying to get what help you can for the educa-
tion of your own pupils from Mr. Darwin's marvellous
exposition of some of the principles which govern the
divine education of families and races.

c

34

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

If I can give you any help in understanding his theory,
I shall think it a great triumph ; but I feel my own in-
capacity for dealing with so magnificent a subject ; and
must ask you to read the " Origin of Species " for your-
selves as soon as you have the opportunity.

The central idea of Mr. Darwin's books, speaking of
him m .rely as a scientific author — I would almost venture
to say the central idea of his mind — appears to me to be
this : — Suppose a cattle-breeder wants sheep differing in
v some particular from any which he possesses or can procure.
Strange as the statement may sound to the uninitiated,
there does exist in Nature a law or power by taking
advantage of which he can manufacture them. Let us
say, for instance, that he wants sheep with very long
wool. He looks carefully through his flock, picks out
those individuals whose wool is the longest, and sends
the rest to the butcher. Now, offspring differ slightly
from their parents in all sorts of ways, and therefore it
is almost certain that some few at least of the next year's
lambs will have longer wool than their parents. Again
he picks out those whose wool is longest, and sends the
rest to the butcher. And so on, till the wool is as long
as the breeder wishes it to be, or at least as long as it is
consistent with the health of the sheep that it should
be. Now the Creator does, by means of cosmical disturb-
ances and of the strife and struggle among the creatures
themselves, just what the breeder does by means of
the butcher's knife; but with this difference, that the
Creator's knife is so arranged as to select of its own
accord precisely those individuals which it is fit should
die early.

When food is scarce, and must be fought for, the

ON DEVELOPMENT.

35

strongest lion will kill the weaker ones. When tigers
begin to invade a forest, the deer who have stout muscles
must exercise them in running away, and the tigers will
dispose of those who have not. When prey is timid and
hides itself in holes, the fox who has any special skill
must use it to hunt it out \ and the fox who has none,
however great his muscular strength may be, must starve.
When the winter is very severe, all the bears will die
except those who have the thickest fur. Or suppose
that a particular kind of insect-eating bird begins to find
its food very scarce. It is thus driven to make close
search for every insect of the species on which it lives.
If any remnant escapes, it will of course consist of those
few individuals who are so like in colour and form to the
leaves of the trees that the birds miss them in spite of
all their eagerness. Those few alone will live to propagate
their kind. Next year again all the young insects will
be eaten except the few who are most like leaves. And
so on, until we arrive at last at the leaf-mantis.

A breeder might chalk out a hitherto unknown type
of sheep upon his wall, and then, in the course of years,
he might realise it by each year keeping alive the in-
dividuals who most resembled it. He might actually
reproduce in a living animal the ideal that was in his
mind. And so God produces whatever was in His mind.
For, as Plato explained long ago, in his beautiful fable of
the prisoners in the cave (Bk. vii. of the " Eepublic "),
what to us appear as visible objects are the shadows of
ideas which existed in God before they were projected on
to matter.

This is Mr. Darwin's theory of natural selection, or
rather, it is a faint shadowy outline of its main features.

36

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

I had meant to go into it a great deal more in detail ;
but I dare not. Mr. Darwin's books are to me perfectly
awful in their quiet beauty. And he is so reserved and
reverent, he suggests so much which he does not actually
say, that I would rather ask you again to read his
writings carefully at the first opportunity. I will only
now say this much more about them : —

Three principles or laws in particular come out very
clearly in them.

First, that the apparent misfortunes of a race, the
circumstances which seem most adverse to its increase in
numbers and strength, are precisely those by which the
Creator develops its powers and perfects its type.

Secondly, that natural selection does not tend merely
to increase size and strength of muscle. All sorts of
powers and instincts are engraved on to matter by repeated
touches of its unseen chisel. The fox got his cleverness,
the bee her geometric instincts, the worker-ant her devo-
tion to the young of her tribe, through the instrumentality
of the same machinery of evolution which gave to the
tiger his claws. Only a slight shift in the circumstances
of any race is needed that the Graver's tool may begin to
chisel away at some feature which it had hitherto left
untouched. There was a time in the world's history
when, if we could have been present invisible, we should
have been tempted to say, despairingly, " The earth is
delivered over to mere brute force ; the longest paws and
strongest jaws must always get the best of it." And yet
we see it was not so ; the great muscular races yield
and die out, where smaller, cleverer creatures manage to
thrive. The longest paws and strongest jaws always did
get the best of it, till the appointed time came when

OX DEVELOPMENT.

37

Nature was to develop some other ideal, and no longer.
It does not seem proved that even cleverness is the
ultimate ideal.

And, thirdly, the health of a creature and its power
of resistance to adverse circumstances depend in great
measure upon the preservation of a certain balance be-
tween all its parts and faculties, and on its adjustment to
actual circumstances. You will understand better perhaps
how this can be from the following instance (which, how-
ever, is mine, not Mr. Darwin's). An animal whose
frame was too big for the size of its stomach or for its
skill in hunting, might be unable, in the one case to
digest, in the other case to catch food enough to keep its
strength up. It would become ill where a much smaller
animal might have thriven. It would actually grow
weak from the excess of its muscular development over
and above what the rest of itself was suited to. This
is, so far as I know, an entirely fictitious case ; but you
see that, given the case, the result might be as I have
described. There is no weapon, no defensive armour, no
faculty, no instinct, no given bulk of muscle or amount
of muscular power, no physical or intellectual development
of any kind, which is, of itself and necessarily, good for
a creature to possess.

And what is not in some way or other good is bad.

So far Mr. Darwin clearly teaches us.

Now it seems to me that the first question to be con-
sidered by any one who wants to solve the problem of a
healthy education is, What are we and our children
tending towards ?

Some people begin thinking over their plans for their
children in this wise : k' What would I like this child to

38

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE,

"become ? " They assume that (within very wide limits)
they can make of their children what they please ; or
that, if they fail to do so, it is for want of finding out
the right means for carrying out their plans. They seem
to fancy they have a right to have plans. " I will train
my child into a sound Catholic," or " a staunch Protes-
tant • " "I will make a professional man of my son ; "
" My daughter shall never marry below her rank ; " " she
shall become a student " or " a domesticated character," &c.
Everything, then, is made subservient in the child's
education to the parent's hobby. And if the child grows
up quite the opposite to what the parents intend, and
sickly and quarrelsome and wicked into the bargain, they
think they have a right to be surprised and disappointed.
I will tell you why I do not think such parents have any
right to be surprised at the ill success of their plans, and
why I think that their first question ought to have been,
not " What plan will I make for my child ? " but, " What
plan has been made for the race of which we and our
children form a part ? "

A trainer of animals may (within certain limits) create
any sort of animals that he chooses ; but his power of
doing so depends on precisely those elements in his rela-
tions with the animals which have no place in our rela-
tions with our children.

First, the farmer has a much greater amount of control
over the circumstances of his flock than we have over
those of our children. He can shut the flock up on his
own farm, we cannot, we must not shut up our children.
He can tell his servants exactly what to do with the crea-
tures ; and if he doubts of the servants' fidelity, he can
do all the work himself, or see it done under his own

ON DEVELOPMENT.

39

eye. You cannot possibly be nurse, mother, governess,
and playfellow to your child, all in one. And you can-
not overlook or direct everything that your substitutes
do in the course of the day. You cannot even plan out
your own conduct to your children. Some very young
mothers fancy they can measure out their words and
deeds from one year's end to another according to a pre-
arranged plan (as the1 farmer measures out so much food
of one sort, so much of another sort, and the stall door
shut at a certain hour) ; but they never succeed in carry-
ing out their ideas long. Now suppose the breeder finds
that his one-sided fancy breeding is making his animals
delicate in some particular point, he can, if he thinks it
worth while, pay special attention to the care of them
in that point. You, who cannot, as I said, watch your
children all day long, will find quite enough to do in
counteracting natural and accidental delicacies and dan-
gers, without wilfully inducing others.

Secondly, the farmer has charge of his animals during the
whole course of their lives \ or if they pass into new hands,
the buyer wants them (usually) for the same purpose for
which the farmer reared them ; so that they are not neces-
sarily exposed to any sudden injurious change of circum-
stances. People do not choose racehorses for ploughing, or
take the seed of spring wheat and sow it in winter, or take
out delicate breeds of animals to a new and rough country.
If a plant or animal has been bred up to such a pitch that it
requires special care and culture, it remains usually among
people who will continue to give it that special culture.
But our children must go out, as soon as they reach
maturity, among people who do not understand our plans
and will not continue our treatment ; they must go into

4o

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

a world over the circumstances of which we have no con-
trol. And if we trained them on any fancy plan, if we
could get them up to any fancy types of our own devising,
they might find themselves as badly off on entering the
world as a prize-pig would do in a forest, or a lapdog in
a pack of wolves.

In the third place, a breeder has charge of the same
race of animals for many successive generations. If he
tried to work out any idea of his own with one single
specimen, whose ancestors did not belong to him and
whose descendants he did not expect to keep in his own
hands, he would waste his time.

And, lastly, although Nature gives to man great license,
and a very wide range within which to try experiments
on creatures, either of his own species or of any other
species, yet she always manages to assert her supremacy
somehow. She allows us to create a change in some part
of a creature's organisation; but then there comes in
that terrible " correlation of parts" that Mr. Darwin
talks so much of, and brings about some other change
which we did not expect or desire. Now, provided that
a fancy breeder can carry his point, whatever it may be,
he is often utterly reckless of any consequences to the
creatures, short of making them absolutely too sickly
to live. We cannot be, and ought not to be, thus reck-
less.

A prize-pig cannot walk. The farmer is quite content
to let it lie helpless in its sty. He wanted it fat, and it
is fat, and that is all he cares for. We cannot afford to
make our children helpless. Tumbler-pigeons pay for
their absurd accomplishment by a proportionate weakness
of wing, and I believe of intellect also. The fancier does

ON DEVELOPMENT.

4i

not care. He wants them to tumble, and not to fly or to
think. And provided they do not tumble so incessantly
as to be unable to eat, he is content. We must not run
the risk of making our children weakly or idiotic for the
sake of any one fancy accomplishment.

Moreover, I doubt whether either a prize-pig or a
tumbler-pigeon has anything like the sense of spring and
the glow of life and enjoyment which is the birthright
of their wild congeners. I daresay tame animals are
often happier in many ways than wild ones ; but not those
exceptionally fancy bred creatures. But we want our
children to be fully alive, do we not ?

Again, to recur to what I said just now ; among scientific
farmers an animal is kept pretty much to what it was
originally meant for. But we know that in the un-
scientific substrata of society animals sometimes get put
to all sorts of uses. A hunter may be sold at last to a
cabman. If that happens, you can see at once that the
poor beast will suffer much more than a less highly bred
one would do, and not be on the whole a much better cab-
horse. You and I ought not so to train our children that,
in the event of something happening which is particularly
likely to happen, they will suffer much more than they
need have done, without any compensating advantage of
special fitness for the work which they will have to do.
Besides which, breeding to a fancy type not unfrequently
makes an animal so delicate and sensitive that no amount
of care will keep it alive at all. Then of course the
creature's life is the price which its owner pays for his
experience. Now a rich farmer can afford to lose sheep
after sheep, if need be, in the process of trying an idea
which turns out to be futile. His position, therefore, is

42 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

not quite the same as ours. A rich farmer will some-
times look one quite coolly in the face and say, "I in-
tended to do so and so, but I found I was making the
beasts so delicate that they died off, so I had to give it
up." A poor farmer could not say it so coolly. It is
perfectly well understood that a poor farmer has no busi-
ness to try experiments. His wisdom consists in taking
the creatures as they are, — in finding out what is good
for their health, and doing it steadily. People who can-
not afford to make costly experiments have no right to
have special objects of their own invention.

On the whole, I think I may venture to predict that
the more you study the doings and experiences of those
people who employ themselves in imposing types of their
own devising upon organic creatures, the less desire you
will feel for imposing any type of your own devising
upon human creatures. You will learn from Mr. Darwin's
books to consider yourselves as not the owners of your
children, but the servants of Some One who, being their
owner, has the direction of their circumstances more
absolutely and more continuously than yourselves. You
will grow to understand that the best you can do is to
study His plans, that you may learn how at least not to
hinder them ; and that the worst you can do for your
children is to form any plans of your own at all with
respect to creatures over whom your power is so imperfect
and so short-lived. You will learn to feel that, as an
under-gardener hired for a season should ask himself not
" What would / like to make of this tree i " but " What
was my master's intention in propagating this variety ? "
So your first question should be, not "What would I
like this child to become?" but "What is our race

ON DEVELOPMENT.

43

tending towards? and what place in the great series of
development was this child intended to fill ? " And if I
dared hope that Mr. Darwin 1 would care for any thanks
of mine, I would express to him my gratitude for making
me feel, as no writings but his ever did, the infinite
contrast between the size of God's thoughts and the size
of mine ; and for teaching me to realise, as I never did
before, how much truer and more artistic work I should
do by carving out faithfully one bit of a moulding or
cornice in God's great temple, than by having the material
of a thousand worlds in my hands to work out my own
devices with.

What is our race tending towards ?

If I point out to you one or two of the countless facts
which seem to me to throw a light upon the question,
you will not, I hope, suppose that I intend thereby to
give a dogmatic solution of that which I feel to be the
problem of the ages.

There are great complaints made now-a-days of the
increasing prevalence of nervous diseases. Their increase
is attributed to tea, spice, alcohol, close air, over-study,
aesthetic excitement, tight lacing, railway travelling, and
fifty other causes. And there are plenty of people who
think it wise to sigh over the use or abuse of the various
luxuries introduced by civilisation, as if their disuse would
be possible or advisable. But when every little shock
that an object receives tends to make it move in one
and the same direction, the natural scientific inference is
that some unseen attraction is drawing it in that direction.

1 This was written many years ago. Let it stand. Who can
tell but that he may care even more now than he would have done
then to know that he has been of use to any one.

44

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

You may perhaps wonder at my speaking of tight lacing
as one of the luxuries introduced by civilisation. You have
heard the practice stigmatised by physiologists as being
not only mischievous, but also barbarous. It is quite true
that what is commonly called tight lacing is as barbarous
as it is injurious to health ; but it is also true that it is the
abuse of a true luxury. All barbarism is, I fully believe,
civilisation which has ceased to progress towards its true
end, and therefore is becoming perverted to a wrong pur-
pose. There are cases in which artificial support afforded
to some part of the body is an invaluable assistance.

I think we have often a very false idea of what the
essential difference between civilisation and barbarism
consists in. A man who simply does not know of the
existence of any human invention, or who, knowing of it,
will not use it in sheer fear of its " artificialness," is, in
relation to that invention, a mere animal. He who from
ignorance or apathy, or because he is under the power of
conventionalism, misuses, and is content to misuse, any of
the results of civilisation, is in so far a savage. Only
in so far as a man believes that every product of the
human intellect has its right use, and conscientiously
strives to find out the right use of each, only so far is he
civilised.

Suppose you have a varicose vein, and that you refuse
to allow your doctor to bandage it, not because you have
any scientific reason for believing that the bandage would
do you more harm than good, but on account of a vague,
loose theory that " bandaging is unnatural," then you are
deliberately electing to be, in this matter, not a man at
all, but a wild animal. But suppose you choose to wear
tight boots or stays, simply because you are too lazy to

ON DEVELOPMENT.

45

give your spine and ankles the amount of exercise which
would enable them to learn to do their own work, or be-
cause " a large foot looks vulgar," then you are indeed, as
doctors very truly say, acting in the spirit of a savage.
Savages always misuse whatever luxuries they can get.

Again, a man who would not give brandy to a tra-
veller dying of cold, on account of some theory against
" artificial stimulants^" is, in so far, choosing the helpless-
ness of a brute, and renouncing the privileges of humanity.
A man who gets drunk because he likes it, or who takes
every day more wine than he needs, because his neigh-
bours do, is, in so far, a savage. The truly cultivated
man, knowing the power of alcohol for good, is quite sure
that when not needed it must do harm.

The penalty of " nature- worship " is helplessness. If a
man distrust all artificial resources, he is left at the mercy
of the forces of Nature ; and the process of natural selec-
tion goes on as severely in his case as in that of a brute ;
more severely, perhaps, because he has the delicacy of
fibre which a brute has not.

The penalty of barbarism is unnatural and premature
corruption of body and mind.

The reward of true civilisation is — a life free from
suffering ?

Ah ! no, my friends. It is the cross. It is that you
are enabled to lay out your toil and pain for a purpose.
It is that you shall see of the travail of your soul and shall
be satisfied.

We shall go on to this point by and by. Only let me
tell you, once for all, that if you fancy that any plan or
" pathy," any fantastic scheme of adhering to " Nature,"
or any power of commanding the resources of art, will

46

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

enable you to prevent yourself or your child from suffer-
ing, the sooner you get rid of the delusion the better for
you and the better for him.

Now the Great Physician, who, whether doctors believe
in Him or no, has certainly given much impulse and guid-
ance to medical science, has declared that man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. If that be true, it means that
he is destined to learn all that God puts in his way in
the shape of knowledge. Therefore he is destined to be
an increasingly intellectual being. And as a necessary,
though not a sufficient, condition of that, he must become
a nervous being. And as all his food and all his physic,
and all his labour and all his recreation, and all his vir-
tues and all his vices, and all his wisdom and all his folly,
tend to make him one, it really seems to me as if he were
destined to become a nervous being. That is to say, the
stomach is to become less and less and the brain more and
more the seat of vitality 1 in him, and the source whence it
is to be diffused over the whole system. And I believe
you might as well go and bid the next gnat-grub you see
breathing . through his tail not to change to a grub which
shall breathe through his head, when the appointed time
for that change has arrived, as quarrel with the increasing
nervousness of civilised man. I know that those of us
have the most success on the whole who do not quarrel
with it, who treat nervous constitutions as such, and ac-
knowledge that they must neither be debarred from study,
nor deprived of aesthetic pleasures, nor forced to violent
exercise, nor exposed to too great cold, by way of making
them less nervous. I know, too, that if we compel ima-
1 Note 5.

ON DEVELOPMENT.

47

ginative and intellectual girls to look for strength where
robust country-women find it, in large quantities of coarse
food, the result is, not less of physical weakness (except
temporarily), but more of nervous disturbance, and a good
deal of derangement of the stomach besides. So that, I
repeat, it does really seem to me as if the Author of Nature
were making our race more nervous and intellectual than
it was, and did not intend that any attempts of ours to
interfere with His- plans in this respect should succeed.

And if the Son of Man of whom we read should really
be the normal type of humanity, to whose image we are
even physically to be conformed; if that highly organised
and sensitive but elastic frame, that perfection of all
human instincts, that magnetic sympathy with all men,
that power of seeing what to the eye is invisible ; that
keen, true imagination which clothed ideas spontaneously
in the likeness of visible forms, but was too healthy to
be carried away by its own visions ; that capacity for
enduring hunger and fatigue as long as any motive for
endurance existed ; that mcapacity for lingering on in
mere animal vitality when the motive for exertion was
gone, — if this should really be the type towards which
our race is tending, what then are we doing when we
mistake the seeing of visions for a symptom of insanity,
or wdien we inflict a course of treatment founded upon
the supposition that man ought to be a less nervous being
than he actually is ?

At any rate, it is certain' that each individual child in
infancy is, to all intents and purposes, a mere animal, and
has, during the time of his education, to develop into a
more intellectual creature. And the development should
go on harmoniously ; his mother's treatment should aim

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

at the same ideal that Nature is aiming at, and not at
any other.

Now it is possible that if we knew better than we do
how to regulate the pace of the progress upwards towards
spirituality, it might take place less by fits and starts
than it does. It is certain that if we knew better how
to remove sidelong obstacles to its steady course it would
oscillate less. But, a.s things are, it does proceed by fits
and starts and it does oscillate. Everything goes on by
fits and starts and everything oscillates. There is no
real harm in that, though it may appear at times puzzling
and unpleasant to us. If we can once get into the true
line of progress, oscillations matter comparatively little.
But if the Creator is working for one end and we for
another, what can come of that but increased suffering
and waste of force ?

Our progress oscillates, then, and is spasmodic. We
have " nervous attacks \ " and then we have fevers 1 more
or less severe, in which the nervous action is suddenly
exaggerated, and " nervous diseases" which are in some
respects like chronic fevers. Our treatment, whatever
" pa thy 73 we adopt, is very much directed to soothing the
nervous excitement. But we cannot do it, — " no pathy "
can do it always, — as quickly as we should wish. And
in the meantime, if the patient, while the attack is on,
uses any intellectual faculty much, or thinks much of any
desire or passion or grievance, he is likely to do himself
great and perhaps permanent harm. What shall we do
with him ? Is it true that there is a river of Water of
Life ? Do you not feel when you read the words as if
that river must have been set flowing on purpose for the
1 Note 6.

ON DEVELOPMENT.

49

use of fever patients ? Where is it ? How shall we get
at it ? How bring them to it, or its waters to them ?

Possibly you may have been accustomed to think of
that river as flowing through the * other world." But
we must not forget that the Bible speaks of it in con-
nection with a city descending to earth.

We all of us feel, when tired, a natural impulse to let
our thoughts fly suddenly off to what we call " another
world ; " by which we too often mean a state of things
in which we shall have the delight of doing what is
worth doing without the exertion and self-control which
here we find needful for the doing of it. And we are
inclined sometimes to mistake for piety this dreamy kind
of " other worldliness " which is the expression of fatigue.
That when we need rest and have time to take it, it is a
perfectly legitimate mode of getting it, to dream of an
ideally perfect state of things, I do not doubt. But I
never met with a woman who could stand by a child
tossing in fever and honestly say that she extracted much
consolation from the thought of fountains of life and
leaves that are for healing in another world where there
is neither sickness nor thirst. While we are speculating
about an interminable future, God is living in an Eternal
Xow, and His laws are governing this world and all
worlds. And one great use of such books as Mr. Darwin's
is, that they bring us back to the consciousness of the
eternal fixedness of law and the incessant flow of life
and growth and change, the endless unity in variety
which Nature is throughout.

Begin by cultivating the habit of always thinking of
human beings as growing creatures ; of each patient as a
creature struggling in a crisis of development • of humanity

D

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

altogether as an imperfect and progressing race. This is,
I assure you, no metaphysical quibble : it makes the very
_Tr3,:es: difference, practically, in our mode of dealing
with disease and with everything else. We do not get
frightened when a child's teeth appear : nor do we want
to pull them out to-day because he had not any yesterday.
And yet that would be no more purposeless or foolish
than much of what we think and do. The fact that a
symptom which is present to-day was never present
before, does not constitute it a morbid symptom. The
fact that your child says to-day what you know he would
not have said last week does not prove him to be delirious
or capricious; nor does it prove that any one has sug-
gested the new thought to him from the outside. And,
again, the fact that our children want, think, feel, inquire
into things which we never heard of, should excite neither
admiration nor distress. You do not expect a breeders
shepherd to sigh over the " degeneracy of the times n
because the sheep have longer wool or the cattle shorter
horns than they used Xor does he, on the other hand,
go off into foolish ecstasies about the " cleverness " of the
animals. His master is working towards a somewhat
different type from the former one : and his business is to
make such slight variation in his treatment as, by reason of
the " correlation of parts," the new breed requires. If we
would take any difference we may notice between the
new generation and the old in the same spirit, it would
help us to avoid many and sad blunders.

When you go to a patient, say to yourself. 14 This per-
son's organisation is undergoing a crisis ; I must watch
that it be not disturbed." When an epidemic breaks out
in the house, say, " Our family life is undergoing a crisis ;

ON DEVELOPMENT.

5i

our home organisation becoming richer and fuller; our
ties to each other more multifarious. The family is cutting
some fresh teeth, and will be able, if wisely managed now,
to assimilate more food." Think of your family life always
as part of an organic life, as a growing, developing
thing. And if you have two children who " don't agree,"
who " can't get on," who jar and wrangle and worry each
other, just quietly try the experiment of making them
dependent on each other in illness ; or, if possible, em-
ploy them together in nursing you, or a favourite elder
brother or sister. If you have a child whom you cannot
manage, make it wait on you when you are not well enough
to be safely argued with and worried.

" But " (I have heard it said in answer to such advice
as this) " it would give me a headache if I had an ill-con-
ditioned child messing about when I felt ill."

"We can hardly expect to save a sinner without trouble.
A mother should think of herself always as the corpus
vile on which her children may experiment. If a child
is selfish and ill-conditioned, it is usually for want of hav-
ing had the needs of others brought near enough home
to his consciousness. Nothing could be more likely to
awaken his consciousness than the fact that he has made
more ill a mother who was trusting to him for care.

" God's thoughts are not as our thoughts," we say ;
" He can bring good out of evil." Most of us profess to
believe this, to be shocked at any one who doubts it.
Many of us really do believe it, in this sense : that we are
able to console and calm our minds by thinking of it when
troubles would otherwise reduce us to despair. But if
a principle is true as a whole, it is true in detail. If it
be true that God is working out an ideal, known to Him,

5^

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

unseen by us. then it follows that every new circumstance,
illness, change of every kind, is a fresh opportunity given
for those who are ready to ride along on His chariot, and
a fresh chance of being crushed for those who are not
ready.

Such books as Mr. Darwin's do not seem at first sight
favourable to any religious faith. But do not skim them
hastily ; read them carefully and often, till your soul
becomes steeped in their patient faith, in their absolute
reliance on the fixedness of eternal truths ; and then,
perhaps, you will feel less inclined to talk of a " headache 91
as if that were necessarily a misfortune.

"Whatever happens to you, try to remember that God
has some object in His mind too great for us to measure.
What He has in His mind it is not for us to say ; but I
am quite sure that if you will just act on the supposition
that what He has in hand is making everybody more
like, physically, intellectually, and spiritually, to the Car-
penter of Xazareth, you will find it to be at least a very
good " working hypothesis," and save yourselves the
trouble of doing a great many foolish things. No symp-
tom is in itself morbid which tends in that direction.
This is the result of all my practical experience, and has
nothing to do with any theological theory whatever.

Try now to realise what is implied in the statement,
which has become so much a commonplace of the art of
nursing that it seems like a truism, and we hardly attach
to it any meaning at all : that whenever you have the
charge of a nervous patient, your aim should be to K take
him as much as possible out of himself." Does it not
imply this, as a result of the empirical observation of all
intelligent doctors and nurses : that in proportion as a

ON DEVELOPMENT.

53

human being is more sensitive, more capable of receiving
intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic impressions, it is
more necessary that he should fix his thoughts on some-
thing besides the gratification of his own immediate im-
pulses ? The nervously organised , as long as they are
healthy, find this out for themselves ; they throw them-
selves into philanthropy, or religion, or art, or some
" cause ; " some generous unselfish passion or folly is the
condition of their existence. They take themselves out
of themselves as birds take themselves off the ground,
without help. They need rather check and guidance
than encouragement. But when they are ill, and science
has to come in to supplement the dormant or distorted
instinct, the first prescription science gives is : " Take the
nervous out of themselves."

Health, we said, consists not in any particular degree
of physical force, nor in the activity of an especial set of
functions, but in the normal balance being preserved
between all the functions and faculties, and on their
working in due subordination the one to the other. Sup-
pose, then, that there should exist in Nature such a law
as this : that physical powers may be used for purely
selfish ends ; but that an intellectual being must be de-
voted— in some shape or form devoted — to something
besides his own immediate gratification. There is much
to suggest the existence of such a law ; nothing, so far as
I know, disproves it. The highest intellectual attain-
ments of wild creatures, so far as we know, are connected
with the devotion of the individual either to its own pro-
geny or to the community of which it is a member. For
human beings, in any ordinary function or profession
requiring the exercise of intellectual powers, it is recog-

54

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

nised that a hope, an ambition, a purpose in the future,
is a better stimulus than immediate gratification ; the in-
tellectual creature needs to be taken perpetually out of its
immediate self.

And here, it seems to me, lies the solution of the question
at issue between "Altruism" and "Egoism." "Man is
meant to live for the good of mankind," say the Altruists.
" He needs, on the contrary, a good foundation of healthy
animal egoism," say their opponents. The truth seems
to be this : that, starting from a life of purely material
egoism, the race which inhabits this planet is slowly pro-
gressing towards one of pure devotion ; and that we, who
are half-way between the two states, must aim alternately
at the good of the individual and that of the race; subject
to this, as the condition for health, that intellectual effort
should be stimulated by some not absolutely selfish aims,
and that the higher the condition of intellectual or aesthetic
progress, the more essential to health is pure devotion
to some object unconnected with the gratification of the
individual.

Mothers are often puzzled to account for those myste-
rious sicknesses of little children which are called, accord-
ing to the particular constitution of the child, either
" bilious" or "feverish" attacks. Their nature being un-
known, they often cause a painful degree of unnecessary
fear, and give rise to a mischievous amount of unnecessary
dosing. If I might be allowed to judge from observation
of the source of these attacks, I should be half inclined
to say they were angels' visits to the house, for the double
purpose of getting rid of the effect of slight imprudences
in diet, &c. ; and of loosening the child's heart-strings from
its stomach, which is in infancy their natural and proper

ON DEVELOPMENT.

55

point of attachment, and putting them into its mother's
hands, before the time arrives when the world, or the flesh,
or the devil would otherwise get possession of them.

The treatment I have invariably found successful is
this : — Quiet, little or no light, no intellectual excitement ;
no solid food until the child is really eager for it ; good
beef-tea or milk and plenty of cold water (unless you are
sure that he much prefers the addition of a little fruit
juice or barley. I believe that to healthily-trained children
cold water quite pure is the most palatable drink during
this kind of illness). As long as the little creature is
pretty comfortable, let it lie alone, and be made as little
conscious as possible of the presence of any outside object.
But if it appears in any way uneasy, some one whom the
child loves — the mother, as much as can be conveniently
managed — should sit or lie down beside it.

During the time that the mother is the child's com-
panion, she must also wait on it herself, should it require
attendance. The sudden change of contact from one
person to another causes a slight nervous jar, which,
though usually imperceptible in a healthy state, is
sometimes painful to one whose nerves are, from any
cause, in a state of tension. And it is cruel to give this
nervous shock during, or just before, any physical move-
ment of a feverish patient.

But what is a mother to do if she happens to be
particularly fastidious and refined, and finds the actual
work of a sick-room not to her taste ? Well, I should
say, chiefly, she is to thank God for giving her a special
means of gaining power over her child's heart. Refine-
ment makes her presence doubly grateful in a sick-room.
And a mother who goes away from her sick - child,

56

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

because it wants some assistance which she thinks it
more fit for a servant to give, is not only injuring the
child's health and temper ; she is walking down from the
pedestal where God has placed her, and ought not to
complain if she finds it hard to get up again.

One hears fine-lady mothers talk a great deal about the
ingratitude of those about whom they have felt so anxious
and for whom they have done so much. What do they
mean by that ? What is it that they have done ? Given
up time and money perhaps ! Are human hearts to be
bought with perishable things like time and money 1
Felt anxious ! Is a child likely to be grateful to the
mother who creates around him an atmosphere of anxious
sensations, while she leaves the numberless details of
kindly help by which his suffering is actually diminished
to be carried out by strangers ?

It cannot be too often repeated that the gratitude of a
human being is won, not by acts nor by sentiments, but
by sacrifice. Not the sacrifice of time and money to put
him into the state in which you happen to like that he
should be, but the entering into his actual condition ; the
learning to judge of his needs and of the possibilities of
good which are open to him ; the serving him and train-
ing him to serve others ; the ministering to him, to his
true normal development, at the sacrifice, if need be,
of your whims, tastes, theories, nerves, prejudices, and
sentiments — of your whole self, in fact.

Gratitude, like everything else, follows laws. The
habit of throwing yourself into other people's needs of
body or mind makes you magnetic and compels affection.
As for acts, when done for any purpose of one's own,
deserving gratitude, one might as well suppose that an

ON DEVELOPMENT.

57

iron bar which has never touched a loadstone " deserves "
to have steel-filings cling to it, only because it has got
itself somehow twisted into the shape of a horse-shoe
magnet.

If we will have courage to grasp the true clue through
the facts of life, we may hope, while performing the most
menial tasks, to gain a comprehension of the laws by
which our nurseries and the universe are guided. But if
we shrink from Nature's fundamental axioms, all that we
can ever learn of science will be like rules for scanning
poetry in a glorious unknown tongue. With intellect
and leisure we may pass examinations or become brilliant
talkers or wonderful theorists ; but we shall never be
able to translate one line of Nature's sacred scripture.

It is a fact, well enough known but not sufficiently
considered, that the services of a nurse or personal atten-
dant,1 when caressingly rendered, have some strange
subtle power of their own, quite inexplicable by any
theory of their merely "proving affection." The Teacher
who washed the feet of those over whom He wished to
gain permanent influence understood human nature won
derfully welL Of course we all — pastors and parents
and Sunday-school teachers — are very anxious that our
respective flocks should feel no doubt about the truth of
that same Book in which the story of the washing of
the disciples' feet occurs. And how edifying the com-
mentary which we sometimes append to the text must be
to the said flocks !

Well, but to return to our little bilious or feverish
patient. If he wants any medical treatment at all (which

1 Michelet recommends a man who wants to keep influence over
his wife's heart not to let her have a lady's-maid.

5S

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

he ought not to do unless he has been injured by
previous over-dosing or serious mismanagement), send for
the doctor. I cannot say I ever saw much good come, in
the long run, from non-professional people playing at
doctoring of any " pathy."

If the child becomes very restless or cross, let the
mother or friend lay her hand on the top of his head and
beg him for her sake (not his own) to be quiet and lie
still : and let her speak to him of God as a Father, or of
some friend whom he truly respects, and who will be
glad if he is good and gets welL And above all, never
let her fancy that because the child is ill she must relax
discipline lest she should excite him. It would be the
same sort of mistake as bleeding for a pulse quickened
by exhaustion. One of the sweetest rewards which a
mother receives for the exertion of keeping up her
authority while her children are in health is the ease
with which she can continue to do so when they are ill,
and the consequent saving of suffering to them. And
the improvement in health, docility, and brain power
which is often observable immediately after a feverish
attack judiciously treated is quite pretty to see.

I have said that I advise the mother to preserve quiet-
ness in a sick child's room. I mean only so far as she
can procure it without allowing him to think that she is
very anxious about it. Quiet is good ; and the feeling
that those about him care to minister to his comfort in
the matter is also good. But the notion, either that his
personal comfort is worth disturbing the comfort of a
family for, or that his health depends much upon trifling
outward circumstances, is in a far higher degree bad.
Besides, it is well to accustom children early to take

ON DEVELOPMENT.

59

interruptions and disagreeables in illness as a matter of
course, with a view to preparing them for the chance of
being ill in later life, when quietness and good nursing
may be unattainable.

And as soon as a child is old enough to take in the
idea (which with many children is very early indeed), I
would, without much talk on the subject, take some
opportunity of making him understand that it is less for
fear of increasing his bodily suffering than because God
is visiting his soul that I desire to avoid distracting his
attention with noise and light ; and that his duty in the
matter is not to allow himself to be upset more than he
can help by anything that may be going on.

If the patient is disturbed by ugly visions, I do not
think it advisable to insist that there is nothing there. I
would say that, whether there is anything there or no,
God can take care of him. And if he speaks of sparks in
the air, or pretty flames, or visions of angels, I would tell
him that, if they are there, it is because God put them
there, in order that he might look at them and learn from
them. How can you be sure they are not there ?

Doctors talk sometimes as if the burning bush which
Moses saw was the mere " fancy " of an " over-excited "
brain. But I do not understand what they can mean by
that. Good, true work, such as he did, does not surely
begin in fancies. And there is a good deal of difference,
at all events, between him and our " over-excited" patients
when they take similar "fancies;" for he saved a nation,
whereas they commonly lose their wits. There must be
some reason for this difference. One reason is, that we
treat them with physic and fuss, whereas he got fresh air

60 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

and quietness. But a far more important reason I suspect
to be, that our treatment, both before and during the
attack, tends to turn their minds in on themselves ;
whereas he was thinking of his brethren and his
God.

CHAPTEE III.
ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

" If I make my bed in hell, Thou art there."

CHAPTER III.

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

Much lias been done of late years with a view both to
establish the art of nursing on a scientific basis and to
make such knowledge as exists on the subject accessible
to all whom it may concern. Professional nurses, and
women who wish to fit themselves for the work of wait-
ing on sick friends at home, have now many opportunities
of learning to do the physical, material part of their work
efficiently and well. But as yet hardly anything is gene-
rally known about one very important part of a nurse's
work, viz., the mental management of a hysterical person,
or one in danger of becoming delirious, or over whose mind
some morbid idea is gaining hold.

I do not, of course, profess to teach a business of which
every one is as yet so ignorant. But I may perhaps give
you a few hints which will enable you to learn something
of it by practice.

All rules for mental treatment may be summed up in
one sentence : Take the patient as much as possible out of
himself. Everybody is agreed that that is the desirable
thing to do. Your study should be to devise means for
doing this continuously, quietly, and steadily.

I give in an Appendix a phrenological analysis of the
reasons for the directions here following, which may be

64

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

interesting to those who are inclined to believe in phre-
nology.

L The first practical hint that I have to give you is,
Do not tell your patient a falsehood. People, otherwise
very good and pious, will tell you that there is no sin in
deceiving a sick man for his good. Now I do not want to
assail that dogma in the abstract, only I do not think it
could be good for a sick man to be deceived. Deception
is often a ready means of producing temporarily an effect
which is good ; but it does so at the cost of much greater
good, and at the risk of most terrible evil. And the cases
are, I believe, much fewer than is commonly supposed,
when the same good effect might not have been produced,
more slowly perhaps, but as surely, without the decep-
tion. How to do this is just what you have to discover
by observation.

If I heard a fever-patient crying out in terror of an
attendant to whom he had had no previous dislike, I
should at once suspect, from all I know of such cases,
that, just when his mind was beginning to wander, she had
told him a falsehood with a view to calming him. It
would not be necessary that he should have consciously
detected the falsehood. If she was conscious of having
told it, then the more he liked her, and the greater her
previous influence over him, the more likely she would be
to infect him with the sense of it \ and perhaps especially
so if she felt half-uneasy in her conscience about having
told it.

There is something significant as well as most touching
in the longing which a half-delirious patient sometimes
shows for the presence and caresses of some particular

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 65

person ; one, perhaps, for whom he never before felt any
very great affection ; one, it may be, his previous inter-
course with whom has been none of the pleasantest ; but
one, I think you will always find, between whom and
himself he is sure that there are, and need be, no conceal-
ments or equivocations.

It is commonly remarked that mad people often take a
violent dislike to those whom in health they most loved.
I should like to know if this is ever the case except where
the friend had previously been deceiving the patient, or
the patient the friend.

In the complicated relations of society, we are all liable
to get into more or less false positions with respect to
others • and these false positions nearly always entangle
us in more or less of dissimulation, if not of actual simu-
lation. But if we only knew how much mischief such
dissimulation does to our own minds, and how it weakens
the ties which bind us to those whom we are deceiving,
we should, I think, try to weed as much of it as possible
out of our lives : we should try to be as nearly as we can
like to that which we feel it necessary to pretend to be.

A man supposes his wife to be much fonder of him than
she really is. She will not — I suppose she ought not to
— try to undeceive him. She will, passively at least,
make up by feigning for the want of the reality. For
her own sake, let her pray and strive that the reality may
come, and come soon, so that there need be no longer any
occasion for feigning.

You have, perhaps, a relative whose manners or pecu-
liarities are disagreeable to you. You desire not to allow
yourself to be uncharitable in your behaviour towards
him. You are constantly, I fear, suppressing the out-

E

66

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE,

ward manifestation of irritation faster than you subdue
the feeling of irritation itself. But do not imagine that
you can do this at no risk to yourself. If you value your
mental health, do not allow yourself to dwell in his
absence on thoughts which you would not allow him to
read in your face if he were present. The double action
of your brain is beating it to pieces.

A woman has overtaxed a particular set of mental
faculties by too eager study in some favourite pursuit.
She is beginning to lose both her grasp of the subject and
her interest in it. Her right course would be to confess
to herself her failing powers, to choose some less fatiguing
occupation for her leisure hours, and to make a religious
duty of steadily fixing her mind upon it. Instead of this,
she clings in idea to the ghost of what she once loved ;
she will not believe that the science or art of her choice
is henceforth a sealed book to her ; she is determined
not to be beaten (which is a dangerous determination
always, and especially so for a woman, except where some
duty or principle is involved upon which she may fall
back when her resolution fails to give her strength).
In spite of her determination, she is beaten, of course.
The hours during which her once-loved books are before
her are spent between listless half-study and morbid
dreaming. So the difficulty of controlling her thoughts
increases instead of being conquered. But there is one
friend, perhaps, whose admiration and intellectual sym-
pathy have been very precious to her. For fear of losing
them, and still more (to do her justice) for fear of his
misunderstanding her and thinking her fickle or idle, she
struggles hard while he is with her, not only to attend to
what he is teaching her, but to show more interest in it

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 67

than she feels, and to preserve the appearance of attention
when, in spite of her efforts, her mind is in reality wan-
dering. Deceit in this case, too, you sqe — pardonable,
justifiable, we think ; but none the less very mischievous.
The action of the brain which is set up while you are
thinking of one thing and pretending to think of another,
is of the most wearing and exhausting kind.

It is needless to go on multiplying instances.

Somehow or other, it comes to pass that almost every
one has some friend — often our nearest — perhaps, alas !
our dearest too — whose presence is the cause of a constant
struggle to appear to be what we are not. A fit of illness
will often be preceded by some days or weeks of irrita-
bility, combined with an intense longing to give vent to
some feeling which has been for years perhaps concealed,
and which the patient struggles painfully to hide. When
the self-control at last gives way, the entrance of the
friend who was the cause of this struggle will be the
signal for a fit of violent excitement, which is attributed
to dislike, but which is, I believe, in the early stages of
illness, rather a symptom of terror. And now the patient
is supposed to be seized with a monomania, which causes
him to think and feel in a manner quite contrary to what
he thought and felt before ; whereas the fact perhaps
is, that he is now for the first time speaking as he has
thought and felt, at least occasionally, for years.

The plan I should try in such a case, if the friend were
one whose kindness and wisdom I could trust, would be
to let him go alone to the patient and say, " You may
say anything you like to me ; I know more of your feel-
ing than you suppose. Nothing you can say will hurt
me or make me angry. All I beg of you is to speak

:S

OF SCIESCE

quietly and steadily, and not to say more than yon are
sure is true*" I believe the result of such a course, if
taken early enrcrL wrali iften be. as I >n:^ it has
sometimes been, that the apparent dislike would change
to an intense affection, and that the impending fit of
delirium would lose much of its painful character, even if
i: were n:t war-del -_± altereiher.

H the experiment succeeded, it would he necessary that
the friend should, after the first interview, gently but
steadily discourage all recurrence to the painful topic ; all
icnfessirns :: ~::n_: reelings i':rme:ly ininlrei. all i~ell-
ing on anything peculiar in the relations of the patirnt
:: himself, all seli-anaiysis and sentimentality of

every kind : and that he should try to awaken the patient's
interest in ether things. His influence in this resp»ect
would probably be greater than that of any other person.

If the first interview failed of producing any good
ez-::. I wc id 1 not repeat the experiment without medical
sanction. A great deal would depend, for the success of
it, on its being tried early enough, before delirium actually
set in. s: rnat tie :'.%/. :: hating :: ilea llz^ the frier: :i
should not have time to fix itself in the insane mind. A
good deal also would depend on the previous character
of the patient, and still more on the character and intelli-
gence of the friend.

Tze zext lest than to this vrciiid certainly te to keep
the friend away altogether, and never to allow his name
to be mentioned in her presence. But it is bad to yield
thus to an insane fancy. It is always good to conquer it
if you can.

The cunning of mad people may at first appear a con-
trail :t::n what I have saii :: their 1; tiring t: speak

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 69

the truth. There are various forms of mania. And be-
sides, a half-delirious person may be very cunning on
many points, and yet at the same time possessed with
an uncontrollable longing to tell some truth which he has
long hidden.

When the patient takes a dislike to some one who has
been deceiving her, it is simply cruel to allow them to
remain together for one hour. The dislike is in this case
not a delusion at all ; it is the result of the uncontrolled
action of a perfectly natural and healthy instinct of dis-
like to and fear of being deceived.

It often happens that a nervous woman will, in illness,
feign a desire to get rid of some person whom she dearly
loves ; and will use every artifice, even that of pretending
to dislike him, to induce him to leave her, although per-
fectly conscious that his doing so would cause her the
greatest possible pain and would diminish her chance of
recovery. A morbid sense of not deserving affection, a
suicidal desire to inflict suffering on herself, and some
perverted notion about the selfishness of allowing a friend
to tie himself to a sick-room, are usually the chief causes
of this sad and often dangerous mental phenomenon.
There is, humanly speaking, no remedy for it but to
smother it out of existence — to drown it in love. " I
can't help your not wanting me ; I want you, and I can't
do without you ; so I mean to stay in spite of all you can
say," is the proper tone to take with such a patient. It
has not unfrequently happened to me to see a fit of what
would have seemed to a casual observer to be violent
anger and dislike suddenly cut short by such a speech.
I have seen the twitching features relax, and the patient
nestle down on the arm of a friend whom she had been

70

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

professing to want to send away, and settle, with a soft
sigh, into a sleep worth all the medicine in the world. I
am persuaded that many a fit of real suicidal mania might
be nipped in the bud if the patient were told earnestly
enough, lovingly enough, and soon enough, that her life
was of value to some one whom she loved ; aye, I fear I
might have said, if she could have been persuaded that
her life was of value to any human being. Women who
are a little over-tired (just because their lives are a little
over-full of unselfish cares and duties, and because too
many others depend upon them) are very likely to fancy,
in the reaction of fatigue, that their lives are of no value,
and that they are not wanted by any one on earth. The
divine and truest remedy is, of course, a firm faith in the
wisdom of Him who appoints our length of days. But
failing that, or as a supplement to that, the human remedy
is to tell the patient that, there as she lies, weak, tired,
prostrate, and useless, some one wants her for very love of
her and cannot live without her.

On the other hand, there are women who, though in-
capable of any deep feeling, are gifted (or cursed) with
that sort of emotional temperament which is popularly
supposed to indicate an affectionate disposition. Such
women, when suffering from hysteria, often pretend a dis-
like to those — I will not say whom they love best — but
to those whose society is most agreeable to them, and
whose caresses and kind words they most crave for.
They do so partly for the pleasure of testing the strength
of their friends' affection, partly for the amusement of
inflicting pain, partly for the excitement of a scene.
They do it for the sake of flirting, in fact ; for the same
reasons which make a heartless girl coquette with her

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 71

lover. The proper treatment is to take the patient at
her word ; to leave her when she bids you, and be always
chary of your caresses and reserved in your conversation
with her. But you must be prepared for a grand explo-
sion of temper and an aggravation of all the symptoms,
physical and moral, when first she finds herself taken at
her word.

Now, in neither of these two last-mentioned cases can
it be fairly said that the patient has " taken a dislike to
those whom, in health, she most loved."

I have said that you should never deceive a sick person.
It by no means follows from this that you are to let him
know all that you think about his state of health or all
you may learn of his affairs. You should try to accustom
him to see that you do not feel called upon to answer all
his questions ; that you do not think it wise to talk to
him about his state of health or his chances of recovery,
or about worrying business ; and that your refusing to do
so on any particular occasion does not necessarily imply
that you have bad news to give him. Try to get him to
feel that he may, and that he ought, to trust in God to
take care of him and his affairs, and in you to tell him
whatever it is expedient for him to be told. Use your
discretion, according to circumstances, as to how much
you will tell him. If he has not the habit of resting
quietly on God, you will often find it necessary to speak
when it would otherwise be far better to be silent. But
never deceive him ; and, above all, never do anything to
induce him to deceive you.

And remember that a calm demeanour, when you know
there is news to tell which would make the patient un-
easy if he heard it, is, if you have faith enough not to

72

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

feel uneasy, something very different from deceit. Con-
quering your dislike of a person, learning to see what is
good in him and to forget what is unpleasant, is not bad
for you, but very good. It is the pretending to like a
man whom you know you dislike, the hiding angry feel-
ings which you are secretly cherishing, which, as I have
said already, makes such havoc of your brain and disturbs
the nerves of all who are under your personal influence.
It is indeed duplicity, a double state, a state of thinking
two sets of thoughts together. And so it is with your
uneasiness about your patient. Do not hide fears which
you allow yourself to feel, but "put on" the quiet faith
which will cause you not to feel them. The simple truth
is, that as long as you feel uneasy about a sick man's
body, soul, or estate, you have no business near him. If
you show it outwardly, you infect him with your fear.
If you hide it, you give him a vague sense of duplicity
and unrest.

Before we quit this part of our subject, let me say one
word to you on behalf of your children. Every child
needs a confidant ; every child at least who is old enough
to think at all should have some adult friend who is not
too much engaged in the mechanical routine of his
education to be free to disentangle his mind for him ;
some person whose business with him is not so much to
make him what he ought to be by direct instruction as
to find out what he is; some wise and trustworthy
woman to whom he may occasionally, in the freedom of
a tete-ct-tete, say anything that comes into his head with-
out fear of being thought strange or irreverent or saucy,
and whose presence offers him no inducement, except such

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 73

as springs from pure affection, to repress the exhibition
of any evil temper.

Who is this confessor to be ?

"Why, who should it be but his mother? Who so
fit as she ? How could she resign the first place in her
child's heart to another?" That is the way in which
one takes such questions in one's romantic youth. Having
been all in all to one's eldest darling when he was three
months old, and being proud to feel that one is so still
when he is three years old, one would naturally like the
idea of being so still when he is thirteen years old, or
thirty even. But alas ! Nature gives many plain warn-
ings that no one creature was ever meant to be all in all
to any other creature, when once that other has risen
high enough in the scale of being to deserve the name of
a thinking creature. Disregard of these warnings leads
usually not to the intensifying of one particular affection,
but to the lowering of the whole physical and moral tone.
As a matter of fact, no mothers are so sure of their
children's affection, in spite of all difficulties, as those
who have the courage to crush out of themselves all
maternal jealousy, and to sanction their children's natural
craving for confidences and friendships outside of the
family circle ; who themselves take pains to provide for
the safe gratification of that craving ; who treat the
objects of their children's preference, as far as possible,
with cordiality ; and who at least are guiltless of showing
irreverence, indifference, or jealousy with regard to any
feeling of a child's heart.

I do not say that you may not gain, and long retain,
that much-coveted " first place " in your child's affection,
and most especially if you have acquired enough of self-

74

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

control to be content to fill the second. But if you do
gain it, if you do become in very deed your child's chosen
confessor and the object of his hero-worship, you had
better renounce the idea of being also his governess.
And you will even need to exercise great self-denial in
restricting the frequency of your private intercourse with
him ; for, as I said, too much of one person's influence is
not good for a thinking creature; and, besides, nothing
is more enervating than perpetual epanchement.

And if it should appear that you are not likely either
to gain your child's fullest confidence or to know what to
do with it if you had it, then do not behave like the dog
in the manger. Let no jealousy of yours interfere be-
tween him and any person whom Providence may put
in his way who is even moderately fitted to receive it.
And whenever the child seems for a few days unusually
cross, or low-spirited, or obstinate, or sullen, I should like
this person to be made aware of the fact, and if possible
to spend a few hours alone with him, or at any rate to
write to him. The crossness may be caused by an
incipient attack of illness ; and some of its most distress-
ing symptoms may be averted if, while the child is still
strong enough to make the exertion, he is encouraged to
unburden his mind of whatever may be weighing on it.

"When influenza or fever is about, one naturally gives
special care to the skin of all the children ; one takes pains
to ascertain that no accidental neglect has caused the
pores to be clogged. At such times, and for a similar
reason, I would take care to ascertain that no secrets
were weighing on their minds.

II. Never try to amuse a nervous patient with any

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 75

conversation which tends to encourage in him hard,
uncharitable, mocking, or disparaging thoughts of others.
Make it your business, so far as your influence extends,
to discourage such thoughts. How to check them, either
in one's self or in another, is, alas ! a problem not always
easy to solve. There are cases in which it seems almost
impossible to keep them at bay. Indeed, there are cases
in which it would appear almost wrong not to be angry.
But you ought to get it clearly into your mind, that,
however circumstances may seem to justify either anger,
ridicule, or contempt, yet, as long as your patient is
indulging in them, his mental disease, be the nature of it
what it may, is gaining strength, though it may be with-
out his or your perceiving it.

I hardly know anything that I so much dread as to
hear a nervous patient laughing at any one. I would
rather see him in the worst low spirits than too merry,
unless I can feel sure that he is laughing at some mere
piece of childish fun, and not at the weakness or folly of
any other person.

Some philosopher has made the remark that laughter
is the result of a sudden emotion of pleasure caused by
discovering the inferiority to one's self, in some particular,
of another person. This remark sounds at first like the
outcome of a morose and unnecessarily cynical view of
life. But there is wonderful depth and wisdom in it, and
you will be the more likely to get at its true meaning if
you will remember that Satan, in the act of falling from
heaven, looks like a flash of light.

"Ce qui est au-dessous de moi me fatigue; ce qui est
a mon niveau m'ennuie ; ce qui est au-dessus de moi me
repose." This rule is as true in the spiritual order of

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things as its converse is in the physical. Therefore, keep
your patient's thoughts as much as possible fixed on
those points in the characters of his friends in which
they are superior to himself. If he cannot and ought
not to help being angry at certain things when he thinks
of them, he can, and while he is ill he should, try to avoid
thinking at all of those things which make him angry.

For a similar reason I would say (though in this I
know that many nurses would not agree with me), do not
try to raise your patient's spirits by exciting in him a
good opinion of himself, his capabilities or his doings.
Even when the main feature of the disease consists in a
morbid tendency to self-depreciation, this is, as it seems
to me, quite the wrong sort of remedy. There is always
a good share of conceit mixed up with this over-conscious
humility. The true cure for it consists, I feel certain, in
keeping before the mind a standard of excellence so high
that any difference in the amount of goodness between
one's self and one's neighbours, or any discrepancy be-
tween what one actually is and what one's best friends
or one's worst enemies think of one, must, by comparison,
vanish to a point and disappear. Try to put such a
standard before your patient. Try gently, very gently,
to make him ashamed of thinking and talking so much
about himself in any way. And then, for the rest, just
flood the disease with love and sympathy. Nothing has
so great a tendency to produce true, and therefore to cor-
rect false humility.

I am supposing that the inclination to self-dispraise is
genuine. But nearly every real symptom has a counter-
feit, which requires to be treated in a different, if not a
totally opposite manner. Self-depreciation is sometimes

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 77

affected, either for the purpose of what is called " fishing
for compliments," or to excuse one's self for the neglect
of known duties. The less notice you take in any way
of tricks of this sort, beyond just letting the patient
perceive that you see through them, the better.

I find, indeed, both with children and with patients,
that, upon a great variety of mental symptoms, the simple
question, " Are you quite sure you mean what you are
saying ? " acts like a spell.

III. Do not argue with a sick person about his delusions.
Do not try to persuade him that he is mistaken. If his
monomania has reference to outward matters of fact not
directly concerning himself, quietly admit that it is pos-
sible he may be right in his opinion. Tell him that
the excitement which the subject causes him is a token
that it is not his business to decide upon it, and that no
mistake you are likely to be led into will be as serious
an evil as the continuance of that excitement. Bid him
trust you to God to enlighten you without his help ;
and ask him to endeavour, as an act of faith in God, to
fix his mind upon some other subject. If, indeed, you
should happen to be able to assert, from later evidence
than he is possessed of, that he is mistaken, it may be
well to do so. The effort on his part to trust your word
will be good for him. But beware of helping to fix his
mind on his monomania ; and especially beware of saying
anything which seems to imply that you consider your
judgment sounder than his. Nothing is so likely as that
to confirm him in the notion that his judgment is sounder
than yours. And besides that, he may really be right
after all as to the matter of fact.

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

I wish nurses knew how much more seldom than they
imagine a nervous patient is entirely wrong as to any
simple matter of fact. Monomania is oftener a mistake
as to proportion than as to simple fact. Delirium and
hysterical attacks are often accompanied and preceded by
a wonderful sharpening of some of the senses and mental
faculties, at the expense of the rest, by an exaltation of
one set of powers and deadening of the others, which
throws the mind off its balance and makes particular
objects and ideas acquire a disproportionate value, just
because they are, for the time, seen alone, all others
being forgotten. A patient is often thought to be mad
only because he insists on asserting something which is
true, but which the nurse does not see to be so, and of
which she only knows that in his ordinary health he
could have no more knowledge than herself, and of which
she therefore supposes that he can have no knowledge in
his sickness. The patient often knows, and is sure that
he knows, something of which you are quite ignorant.
The thing may be of no consequence whatsoever in itself.
His delusion may consist in the very importance which
he attaches to it. If you contradict him when he knows
he is in the right, you only make him fancy that it is of
immense importance that he should convince you. In
fact, there is hardly any mistake so cruel as that of
treating as insane one who is only in a state of intense
vision. You run thereby the very greatest risk of per-
manently disordering the intellect. Say, " You may be
right. I cannot tell. I cannot make myself see the
thing as you do. If what you say be true, and if God
cares about my knowing it, He will presently enable
me to see it. But the subject quickens your pulse and

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

flushes you. That is certainly a token from God to me
that you are not to talk of the subject at all while you
are ill, but to trust it to Him. I will try to find out
whether the thing be as you say. But I will not, I dare
not, talk to you about what excites you."

Never laugh at any assertion of a patient about outside
matters of fact. Never treat what he says about them
with indifference or disrespect. For the abnormal quicken-
ing of particular faculties of which I have spoken is
often accompanied by an intense realisation of an Unseen
Presence. The man, perhaps, never before really knew,
or at least never felt, that whatever truth he perceives
is taught to him by that Unseen Teacher. Suddenly he
discovers that Some One is telling him this particular
truth, is showing him this particular fact. No wonder
that he feels himself then inspired with the particular
truth or fact. Any appearance of irreverence on the part
of those to whom he speaks is torture to him. And of
course the more you cannot see the thing he is telling
you, the more he takes it to be a special revelation granted
to him, and which he is bound to communicate to others.
Take his inspiration quietly for granted ; only tell him
that you are inspired too. Your special business being
to take care of his health, your inspirations refer to that
subject and not to his subject. If you believe this, you
will feel no difficulty in saying it kindly and seriously.
If you do not believe it, find some other scope for your
talents than trying to nurse delirious patients.

Of course I do not mean that a nervous patient never
is wrong as to matters of fact. What I mean is, that it
happens more seldom than we fancy. And if the patient
is right, contradiction may do him serious harm ; whereas,

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

even if he is wrong, it can do him no harm to drop the
subject and trust in God. In fact, the more wrong he
is, the more necessary it is that he should drop the
subject.

If the patient's delusions have reference to his own
state of body or mind, or to outward events as influenced
by his own acts, or even, perhaps, as affecting specially
his own happiness — as, for instance, if he supposes him-
self to be dying, or going mad, or fancies that every one
dislikes him, or that he is under an evil star, or that he
brings ill-luck on those who love him, or that he has
sinned past redemption, or that he is not " elect," or that
he has ruined himself and his family, &c, &c, — the
treatment must be somewhat different from that recom-
mended above. Listen, for once, quite quietly to all
that he has to say. Then say calmly, "It is quite
natural that you should feel as you do. It is a symptom
of your physical condition. But you know it is a mere
symptom. No one could brood much over his own state
without falling into some delusion. The precise nature
of the delusion depends on the nature of the disease ;
but if I sat thinking about myself for a day or two, I
should be sure to be haunted by some absurd fancy or
other. There is nothing disgraceful or sinful in your
imagining what you do. Only it will really be very
wrong if you go on brooding over a subject which makes
you so morbid. Try to think of something else." After
saying this, or something like it, once, show a good deal
of indifference to the whole subject. Treat it openly as
a monomania. A little kindly banter even may not be
amiss. There is no harm in showing want of respect for
this sort of selfish and introspective fancies. Thinking

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 81

of one's self in any way is not a thing that claims respect.
There is no harm in letting your patient see that you
think your judgment sounder than his about his own
state, because the fact is that no one's judgment is of any
value about his own state, either of body or soul \ and
there is no fact which it is more necessary for sick people
to know, or the knowledge of which is more restful to
them.

I am aware that a patient sometimes pronounces him-
self to be dying when the doctor thinks there is no danger
(or vice versa) ; and turns out in the end to have been right.
He has seen the end, as it were, of his disease by some
kind of instinct or inspiration, without effort or excite-
ment, and by the help of no process of reasoning. But
I think you will find that this sort of prophetic instinct
about one's self is almost always accompanied by a strange
calm which subdues all desire to convince others against
their will. If your patient tries to worry you into the
belief that he is dying, when the doctor says he is not,
you may usually treat it as a delusion born of restless and
selfish anxiety.

Never forget the wide difference between being led to
make an effort of self-control by the desire not to be
selfish or obstinate, and being driven to make it by the
fear of being thought so. I do not say that the driving
process may not be necessary sometimes, in the case of a
patient who cannot be led, and over whom no high
motives have any power. But driving is a very bad
substitute for leading. And there is as much difference
between the fear of being thought selfish and the desire
not to be so, as there is between the fear of a flogging and
the desire to please one's parents. And nurses too often

F

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do not consider this. And there are great numbers of
sick people over whom it is both needless and hurtful to
hold any sort of rod — numbers who, poor things ! are
only too anxious to go the right way, and whose one
desire it is to get any one to guide and sustain them along
the rough road by which they must travel.

IV. A great deal of mischief is often done by the
thoughtless way in which nurses and friends try to carry
out the doctor's injunction to discourage the patient from
dwelling on this or that morbid idea or distressing re-
collection. "What the doctor means is, that you are
never to bring the subject before the patient's mind when
he is not thinking of it ; and that when he is, you are to
encourage and assist him to think of something else. It
is bad for him to talk much of the painful subject,
because it helps to fix it on his mind. But it may be a
great relief to him to say out all he has to say occasionally.
It may be the greatest possible help to him to throw it off
his mind. The mere negative preventing of a sick man
from speaking of a subject that haunts him is often very
cruel, if you cannot at the same time help him to turn
his thoughts to something else. And if you say anything
which induces him to pretend not to be thinking of a
thing which he cannot forget, you run the risk of doing
serious mischief. Face the morbid subject boldly until
you have made the patient recognise some definite and
effectual mode of banishing it from his recollection, and
show him that it is his duty to banish it whenever it
arises. After that, you may avoid entering into the
subject. When he speaks of it, you need only remind
him that it is his duty and yours to think of something
else.

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 83

How to bring the moral sense to bear on any particular
topic must depend on the temperament and previous
habits of mind of the patient, and on the amount of his
intimacy with, and affection for, yourself. You may tell
him, if you think it will influence him, that his talking
about a certain subject pains you; but take care that he
is not induced, by the mere fear of your jarring on him
by want of sympathy, to be silent about it when it would
be a relief to him to speak.

Make it your study to supply your patient with healthy
thoughts, of such a nature as to prove the natural cor-
rective of his unhealthy ones. It is often a good plan to
select a few words from a poem, or from some religious
or philosophical work with which the patient is acquainted,
repeat them slowly, make him say them after you, and
then bid him have recourse to those words again when-
ever he feels tempted to dwell on the particular thought
against which you have warned him.

I may as well say here that your business in a sick-
room is to promote the health and comfort of the sick.
Such a remark may seem to be a truism ; but it is not as
needless as it seems, for many people allow themselves
to be sadly confused on the point by vague talk about
the " more important concerns of eternity." They forget
that nothing can be more important for us than the doing
well that which has been given to us, or which we have
undertaken, to do \ and that, if we have any power to
further concerns in themselves more important (which I
should be sorry to deny), the way to make the most of
that power is by attending faithfully to our own proper
business. If you have any religious theories or prejudices
opposed to those of the patient, or any notions of securing

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

the salvation of people by making them believe what you
believe, you must leave them all behind you at the door
of the sick-room ; and be guided in your choice of reading,
&c, first by what is best for the sick man's health, and
next by what you find gives him most pleasure. The
remarks I have made on a previous page will suffice to
show that I do not think everything which gives him
pleasure is necessarily good for him.

It is often noticed that religious insanity and monomania
is more hopeless than any other. It does not follow
that the sole reason for this lies in the nature of the
disease itself. Religious insanity is seldom treated as
rationally as any other kind of mental disease ; especially
in the beginning. In ordinary cases of mental illness
the friends think of the case as one of disease, and deal
with it on its own merits. They do so, at least, as soon
as they have found out that disease exists. They make
blunders enough often; but at any rate they have nothing
to think of except doing the best for the patient's brain
as far as they can find out how. But if any form of
religion mixes up with his excitement, then there is not
only his brain to cure, but his soul to save, and a party
to serve as well ; and the friends become as mad as the
patient. No one can do simply and quietly what the
doctor orders (even if the doctor is not too much afraid
of coming into collision with prejudices of all sorts to say
what he thinks). No one, usually not even those who
profess, like Gallio, to care for none of these things ; for
their judgment is often warped by a foregone conclusion
that all religious intensity must be illusion more or
less.

In a case of religious monomania the patient should be

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 85

left very much in the charge of some one who entirely
sympathises with his especial form of belief and modes of
expression. Orders to avoid talking of the morbid
subject should come, as far as possible, through some
channel which will convey no impression of irreverence
or unbelief. The patient should be encouraged to be
silent (or keep whatever rules may be made for him),
distinctly on the ground that by so doing he will best
recovec power truly to serve whatever cause is sacred to
him. That he is to be ultimately hindered from serving
that cause, should never be suggested for a moment. So
treated, I do not see why religious mania need be so very
unmanageable.

An earnest man once said, " The last enemy that man
has to conquer is his belief in his own immortality;" and,
though I do not think that the belief in immortality will
ever be destroyed, or wish that it should, I understand
the feeling which prompted his words, and have often
been tempted to re-echo them. The belief that our fate
in a future world depends directly on the opinions we
hold in this world, is dragged into all kinds of irrelevant
conflict with common sense, and comes in at every turn
to interfere with right action. Surely we ought to do
the business of this world as well as we can ; and leave
the concerns of the next, in faith, to Him who has filled
this so full of difficulties, and told us only just enough
about any other to make us feel how important may be
the results of carelessness in things which seem to us
trifles.

The fact of the existence of such a thing as religious
insanity at all was for years, I must confess, a great
puzzle and stumbling-block to me. We were told to

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

"pray without ceasing," to "do all to the glory of
God ; " then how was it possible to be too religious — to
think too constantly of God ?

The most obvious answer to the question is this : A
good deal of what is called religion consists, not in
devotion, but in the use of the intellectual faculties on
theological subjects. This intellectual exercise is often
premature ; and almost always unhealthy in kind, because
carried on under the pressure of a supposed duty to
arrive at a certain conclusion, and to stifle all thoughts
which do not seem to point towards that conclusion.
This is one partial solution. Another is this : Music,
dancing, art, and -social intercourse do, in various ways,
lead us to control momentary impulses. They, as is com-
monly and very justly said, " take us out of ourselves."
We will go into this subject more in detail in a future
chapter, but it is evident that amusements of all sorts do
take us out of ourselves, though very insufficiently. Any
real work, in the long run, takes us more out of ourselves
than any form of amusement. But if you cut yourself
off from social enjoyments in the name of religion ; and
substitute no real work, or enthusiasm, or generous
pleasure, or true worship in their place, you lower the
vital powers, and leave body and mind an easier prey to
any form of disease than they otherwise would have
been.

Neither of these causes, however, appear to account
for the most startling facts connected with this subject ;
such, for instance, as those epidemics of insanity and crime
which often follow in the track of a revival movement.
I do not say that I can exactly account for those facts ;
I do not know enough of the structure of the brain.

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 87

But I feel sure that the more we inquire into them the
more light we shall get on the whole subject of education
and mental treatment.

Any strong excitement of devotional feeling intro-
duces into the brain a large charge of vitality. It is
there ready to go wherever it is carried. Its direction
will depend on what part of the frame is excited at the
time, or immediately afterwards.

Now think of a revival scene. By appeals to the
really religious sentiments, by the stimulus of music, and
by the magnetic action of a crowd on one another, a high
degree, both of nervous power and of nervous excitement
is produced. But the preacher mixes up with what is
really good in his address such pictures of the future
judgment as appeal violently both to the fears and to the
self-love of his audience. Nay, in some cases, his lan-
guage tends directly to excite destructiveness in x< his
hearers, as when he gives them vivid descriptions of the
saints in glory, watching the punishment of sinners. An
organ once violently excited has a tendency to act of
its own accord for some time afterwards, especially if it
be naturally large or habitually active. In many of the
audience, therefore, after the unwonted religious excite-
ment has gone down, the mere animal faculties and pas-
sions will continue to vibrate in an irregular and uncon-
trolled manner.

False gods are often spoken of as devils or evil demons.
If that means that the " devil " is a product of the unna-
tural union between true Divine inspiration or afflatus, and
selfishness which is the opposite of God, then I do not
think it wonderful that some revivals exhibit so many
1 £ manifestations " of Satan as they do ; to wit, hysteria,

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

insanity, and crimes. Love should be allowed to cast out
fear and self-love. That is God's law. Woe betide those
who violate it ! A man who has entered into conscious
communion with his Maker should be encouraged to be
willing " to be accursed," if he could do his brethren any
good by it ; not to seek for shelter from his Father's lov-
ing discipline. We were told all that eighteen centuries
before phrenology was ever thought of. But I fear that
about the last, as it will be one of the most valuable, of
all the achievements of science will consist in persuading
religious teachers to believe in the Bible. •

Of course I do not mean that a man whose mind is
habitually under healthy influences is likely to be the
worse for occasional religious excitement, no matter how
injudicious the mode in which it is produced. Such an
one has his mind under control. It is the spasmodic
action of a moral sense, habitually too inactive, which does
harm, if thoughts of a wrong kind are presented to the
mind at the time, or arise immediately afterwards. Fits
of what is called "realising the presence of God" appear
to be a very dangerous form of enjoyment, except for
those who have already acquired a habit, so ingrained as
to have become almost mechanical, of acting as if they
believed themselves to be in the presence of God.

I have observed that doctors, though they seldom refuse
a patient leave to see a clergyman if he wishes it, yet
would sometimes rather not be asked leave. I suppose
they have observed that what is called " religious talk"
often does a patient more harm than good.

The instincts of self-preservation and self-love seem
intended, from all we can observe, not only to control the
animal passions, but to excite to muscular action. Run-

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 89

ning races or boxing for a prize seems a natural sort of
proceeding enough \ only that, as even the most unculti-
vated man is not a mere brute, he should not spend too
much of his life after the fashion of brutes, or make the
objects of brutes his primary aim. But when a man is
laid on a sick-bed, we do not want him to make any mus-
cular exertion whatever. Even if he is only suffering from
a local injury he cannot" safely do so ; and in many cases
he is, besides, too weak to bear it. A great part of the
physical treatment, therefore, is often directed to calm
that desire for movement which produces " restlessness."
I do not therefore, wonder, that a doctor should be un-
willing to accept as an assistant a man who would unne-
cessarily appeal to those motives of fear and personal
acquisitiveness which set beasts running !

V. Miss Nightingale complains of the injustice often
done to a sick person by unsympathising people who do
not know how much disease and confinement are affect-
ing his mental health, and how much difficulty he has in
behaving even decently well to his attendants. There is
often much cause for her complaint, up to a certain point.

It is on many accounts much to be desired that the idea
of brain disturbance should be more generally admitted
than it is, as an element in the solution of problems both
medical and social. Nearly every one has the material
machinery by the help of which he thinks, more or less out
of order all his life ; and some sort of extra derangement
of the functions of that machinery forms a symptom of
nearly every disease. We have all heard this stated as an
abstract dogma ; and in some sort of sense we believe it.
But our judgments would be more charitable and just,

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

our general conduct more patient and wise, and our treat-
ment of the sick more consistent and successful, if we
recognised it more constantly than we do. We are too
prone to draw in our minds an artificial line of demarca-
tion between the sane and the insane, which has no
existence in fact. Cases are constantly occurring in which
a long course of unkind or wicked or capricious behaviour
suddenly culminates in some act so outrageous that the
doer of it is at once placed under restraint. "When this
happens, it is admitted on all hands that the patient was
all along mad ; and that, for want of knowing him to be
so, the world has been judging him unjustly. But the
world judges quite as unjustly, in the same way, thousands
of people who never break out into acts of violence at all.
The breaking out is very much a matter of accident.

And this unjust judgment of those whose mental
malady is not yet openly acknowledged, is by no means
the worst consequence of the artificial distinction which
we so lazily and clumsily make between the absolutely
sane and the absolutely insane. At a certain stage of dis-
ease, everybody suddenly discovers that " the poor thing's
mind is affected," and that " he is therefore not responsible
for what he says and does." Thereupon begins a course
of half-pitying, half-contemptuous indulgence, alternating
with neglect (neglect of courtesy and observant respect, I
mean, not of physical care), which is even more cruel and
far more mischievous than the previous injustice.

The whole subject of the responsibility of human crea-
tures is a very solemn and a very difficult one ; and I have
no wish to intrude into it any theories of mine. It is
enough for me to say that your patient is always respon-
sible for doing his best ; and that it is your business to

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 91

prevent any of those who have access to him from treating
him as if he were, or ever could be, flung outside of the
pale of responsible humanity and abandoned to the powers
of darkness.

Try in every way to prevent a nervous patient from
drifting into a feeling of being cut off from his past life.
There may, of course, be some special reason for wishing
him to avoid dwelling on the past, or on a particular part
of it. But, as a general rule, anything that keeps up the
sense of connection with the past and the future, and
with the human world outside, is a valuable corrective,
both to restless impulses and to morbid melancholy.
Encourage him to keep up old habits (except, of course,
such as are positively injurious). It is a bad sign when
an orderly woman begins to be indifferent to her personal
appearance and to the order of her room. And it is often
something more than a mere sign or symptom. Such
tokens come to partake, after a while, of the nature of
sacraments ; that is to say, they are not only outward
signs of an inward state ; they are also means whereby
we get into that state. If I had charge of a woman who
had been a notable orderly housewife, and began to find
her take less notice than usual of a littered room or of
untidily served meals, I should make no remark on the
subject at first, but be very orderly myself, without dis-
turbing her at all about it (to give a perhaps over-tired
part of her brain complete repose). But after a time I
would quietly endeavour to interest her in helping me to
preserve order for the sake of my comfort, not of her own.
Keep up more especially the habit of whatever religious
observances the patient has been accustomed to consider
necessary or to find soothing. Make Sunday as different

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

as you can from other days, if he has been used to keep
it sacred. Make the distinction, whether he cares for it
now or not, in a quiet, cheerful, matter of course fashion,
so as to let him feel as much as possible that his old life
is still going on of its own accord. Even if he is too
restless or too weak to bear the reading of more than one
verse of the Bible at a time, still do not unnecessarily
omit that one verse at about his usual hour for such
reading. It may happen that a patient professes to have,
and fancies that he has, grown utterly indifferent to such
observances ; and yet, if you omit them, will feel bitterly
that he is lost and forsaken and given over to disease
and loneliness and to his own fancies. The thing to do,
li you can, is to make him feel that, sick or well, he is a
member of the Church and of the family, and a citizen of
the state; and that you have not the remotest notion
of treating him as if he were not so ; that he has his
definite place in the world; a place to which definite
duties belong ; a place which indeed his circumstances
(including his mental constitution and the fact of his
illness), help to mark out for him, but which no fancies
need prevent him from filling usefully, and the duties
of which, such as they are, no morbidness should prevent
him from discharging with all the strength he has. A
hospital has many disadvantages over a private house ;
but it has great compensating advantages, especially for
nervous patients ; not the least of which is that each must
know that he has at least negative duties to the others ;
each must feel that his illness is part of a great scheme
of things, which was going on before he became ill, and
will go on still when he has recovered or died. And this
feeling is, in a sense which I will explain on a future

OX MENTAL HYGIEXE IN SICKXESS.

93

occasion, " Homoeopathic " to most kinds of nervous
suffering; i.e., it is the natural remedy; it cures by
counteracting the original cause, though it appears at
first to aggravate the symptoms.

If you happen to be blest with a clergyman of any
denomination who is fit to be let into a sick-room, by
which I mean one who believes that God is, and that he
himself is not, the Saviour of men, and if your patient is
content to see him, get as much of his help as you can.
Such a one will probably have sense enough not to over-
tire a sick man ; and he will at least have humility
enough to take a hint from you or the doctor as to how
much the patient is likely to be able to bear. His read-
ing of prayers, &c, will be more refreshing than yours,
because of the change of voice. And somehow, what an
earnest clergyman says impresses one more than the same
words from any one else. I have no opinion to offer as to
why this should be; but I know the fact is so with many
people, and with none more than with some of those who
pride themselves on hating priests and on disbelieving
their dogmas. And the pastor will be your best ally in
the difficult task of which I spoke just now, of preventing
the patient from feeling as if he were cut off from his
past life and from the great human world outside, as if
his life were bound up in his medicine bottles and his
nurse.

VI. I need hardly caution you against indulging any
feeling of jealousy about your patient's interest in things
and persons unconnected with yourself, or his enjoyment
of pleasures which you were not the means of procuring
for him. And yet when the nurse is very tired, she is

94

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE-.

sometimes almost as morbid as the sick man himself, and
needs as much knowledge and caution to take care of her
own mind as of his. At such times try to remember that
the business in hand is curing your patient, not settling
the amount of your claims on his gratitude ; and that,
however quiet he may need to be kept, yet, whenever, and
in so far as, he is allowed to be roused or interested in
anything, the greater variety, and the more complete
change of interests he has, the better.

VII. While engaged in the care of nervous patients or
sensitive children, there is almost as much need for exer-
cising control over one's thoughts as one's words; and that,
not only while they are present. Indeed I suspect that if
we knew more than we do of the secret relations between
human beings, we should feel our unspoken thoughts to
be at all times important to others. But a state of im-
pending delirium is one in which some instincts become
quickened and certain sensibilities may be intensified.
An excitable child, a hysterical girl, or a fever patient, is
more likely than a quite healthy person to be affected by
your unspoken thoughts.

VIII. An important part of the doctor's business con-
sists, we are told, in distinguishing between organic disease
and that which is merely nervous or functional. This is
a medical question ; and you can give no help in solving
it except by faithfully reporting such observations as you
have been able to make. But a very important part of
yours will sometimes consist in detecting how far nervous
symptoms themselves (whether physical or mental) are real,
and how far they are hypochondriacal, or even wilful ; in
distinguishing when the patient is yielding to what he

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 95

might conquer better if his will could be aroused, and when
he is engaged in a brave but perhaps blind struggle in which
he only needs to be helped and guided. The symptoms
of the two forms of " nervousness " are often strangely
mingled together, and tend to produce each other ; but
they are in themselves distinct. To discriminate between
them requires neither medical knowledge nor much sick-
room practice ; but it does require great attention to the
case, and a habit of observation, and, above all, a habit of
looking at human nature from a right point of view, and
of judging it by an adequate standard. A life hitherto
blameless — even a life, so far as men have seen of it, calm,
devoted, and holy — affords no absolute security against
any description of folly or crime ; though, of course, a
habit of conscientious self-control gives the best chance of
recovery, and makes remedial measures effectual, which,
in the case of an ill-governed mind, would be useless and
unsafe.

The difference to be made in the treatment, according
as the patient is yielding to his disease or struggling
against it, is easily learned by practice. I will only say
further on this point, that little permanent good seems
ever to be done by appealing, in sickness, to a much
higher class of motives than the highest of those which
the patient is accustomed to act on. Try to keep the best
side of his mind uppermost ; appeal to the best among
those motives which habitually influence him ; draw out
his best self and enlist it to fight on your side against his
worst self. This I think you wTill find more practically
useful than the attempt to import into his mind, while he
is ill, thoughts and feelings higher than he was capable of
understanding when in health. And if the moral tone is

96

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

very low it may be necessary at times to make him afraid
or ashamed of indulging his waywardness.

It sometimes happens that one whose life and aspira-
tions have been of a higher kind than those of ordinary
mortals, allows himself to become morbid on some subject,
literary, political, or social, &c, which he fancies he has a
moral or religious reason for getting excited about. The
real reason for excitement is, of course, some sort of brain
disturbance, just as much as in the case of one who goes
mad from indulged passions. Unfortunately friends often
do not fully realise this fact until too late. The utmost
which they venture on, at first, is a timid reverential mix-
ture of coaxing, concession, and argument. I suppose it
is natural to shrink from taking a tone of superiority with
one to whom we have been accustomed to look up. But
were a man as wise as Solomon and as holy as an apostle,
still, when once he is ill enough to be, as to his health, in
the care of any other person, he ought to be made to feel,
as gently as possible, but very emphatically, that that
person is, for the time, one of the appointed " powers that
be," and intends to be obeyed accordingly.

AVe are apt at times to confuse the true reverence
which comes of a loyal recognition of relationships with
" respect of persons." It is just as true that a patient
should, within certain limits, obey his nurse, as that a
child should, within certain other limits, obey its parents.
The sense of moral order which the recognition of this
duty gives is soothing to an over-tired brain. It is not
enough that you succeed, somehow, in preventing your
patient from doing, or thinking of, the particular thing
which is bad for him. It is often of even more import-
ance that you should procure for him that mental repose

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

97

which comes of voluntary submission to direction. And
a very good and wise man may need that repose quite as
much as a bad and foolish one.

Nothing more tends to make a family of children
manageable than letting them see that the parents know
how to obey in their turn and at due season ; that,
throughout the household, obedience is taken as an expres-
sion, not of opinion about the wisdom of the person
issuing a command, but of loyalty to his office and of
sympathy with his responsibility. A little child should
occasionally be left to watch by a sick-bed, with instruc-
tions : " Do not let father get up, or read, till I return ; "
" see that the food is taken at such an hour," &c. If
nurse and patient will let the little deputy see that its
responsibilities are recognised as constituting a claim to
unquestioning obedience and to respectful sympathy, it
will have learned — not as some people fancy, a license
for self-assertion and self-will — but a good lesson in true
obedience, which will be specially useful when its own
turn comes to be ill.

IX. I assume that you have read wThat Miss Night-
ingale and other practical nurses say about the mode of
administering food. Indeed I have taken for granted
throughout that you have learned, and that you will con-
tinue to learn, as much as possible about sanitary laws
and practical hygienic rules of all kinds. If you feel
that reverence for the Creator of all, in which, as I have
tried to show you, our intellectual and moral life consists,
it will make you not the less, but the more desirous to
study and obey His physical laws. I would only suggest
to you how, when the observance of a physical law is,

G

98

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

from circumstances, impossible, you may make the breach,
of it as little injurious as may be, and lead you to a clue
by which, when the physical laws themselves so cross and
check each other that you cannot obey one without violat-
ing another, you may learn to guide yourselves in choos-
ing between them the one which it is most important
under the circumstances to observe.

Apparent want of appetite may proceed either from
actual disease of the stomach, from nervous dyspepsia
(i.e., want of digestive power owing to functional disturb-
ance), from mere nervous dislike to the act of eating,
from some morbid fancy, or from sheer temper.

In case of organic disease of the stomach, you have
nothing to do except gently but firmly to carry out the
doctor's directions, observe the results, and report them
faithfully to him (but not in the patient's hearing. It
ought to be so much a matter of course that the nurse
shall escort the doctor out of hearing of the sick-room,
that her doing so on any particular occasion shall attract
no attention). You may be tempted to think that he is
mistaken as to the kind and quantity of the food which
he prescribes. It is possible that he may be so, but you
are more likely to be wrong than he, and the more exactly
you obey orders and observe results, the better on the
whole for all parties.

Supposing the stomach not to be actually diseased,
then, if the doctor understands his business, and if he
has reason to think that you understand yours, he will
be the first to tell you that you must, in a great measure,
judge for yourself what food the patient can best take.
He will give you some general directions, and leave you
to carry them out according to your own discretion.

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

But under no circumstances should you give without
permission (while the patient is still under the doctor's
care) anything which has been forbidden. If you have
any reason which the doctor does not know of for
thinking it would do good, you ought to tell him of it.
But he may have reasons, which he could not explain to
you, for thinking it would do harm.

Cases have occasionally occurred in which a man's life
has been saved by a friend indulging his craving for some
article of diet which his doctor had persistently denied
him, even after having been made aware of his longing
for it ; and wonder-mongers have made the most of such
cases. They have kept no record of all the lives that
have been lost in the same manner. Doctors are generally
very good to us unprofessional nurses ; they do not tell the
world all they know about our mistakes and their con-
sequences, or I fear some of us would run great risk of
being put on trial for manslaughter.

If you really think that your doctor misunderstands
the case and will do more harm than good, why let him
continue to prescribe at all ?

I fear our mode of thinking of and acting towards a
doctor who does his best, and who shares our respon-
sibility, and silently covers, where he cannot repair, our
blunders, is sometimes very ungrateful and unjust.
That loyalty to relationships, of which we spoke just
now, is at all times of more consequence on the ivliole
than correctness of opinions. In fact, we cannot always
be sure whose opinion is right ; whereas we always can
know to whom obedience is due ; and this distinction is
nowhere of more importance than in the relation between
doctor and nurse.

ioo THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

We confuse our lives by trying to settle whose opinion
is right, as if this world were one in which no mistakes
should be made. Whereas the world in which we are
placed is a world in which mistakes are made, are an
integral and necessary part of the life of each man; a
world in which, when two people disagree in opinion,
neither of them can be sure that he is free of error.
And of this world — this world to which mistakes belong
— we make the best, on the whole, by giving obedience
where it is due.

Believe me, any nurse who knows her work at all, will
find doctors on the whole willing to leave quite enough
of responsibility on her shoulders ; will find quite enough
to think about without contradicting or deceiving them ;
and ought to be, and will be, thankful for any definite
instructions and prohibitions. Women who boast of the
(apparent and temporary) good results which they have
obtained by disobeying orders, are usually too ignorant
of physiology to know when they are doing harm. A
woman who, knowing what she was about, had taken upon
herself to dismiss the doctor because she felt he was
doing harm, and had saved the patient's life by disobeying
the doctor's orders, would I think have gone through too
much of suffering from the sense of her own responsibility
to be in any humour for boasting of the fact.

X. Numbers of people in the middle classes, though
fewer I hope than was formerly the case, die not of disease
but of starvation. This happens often because the nurse
neglects the physical material part of her work. She
brings up sour milk or spoiled food ; or she has never
taken the trouble to find out what the patient can best

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. ici

digest. But it happens perhaps still more often because
she does not understand his mental condition, and does
not know how far to believe his statements about himself
and his wants.

It is not always easy to find out why a patient refuses
to eat. Often he does not know himself ; and will give
you, in perfect good faith, a reason as far as possible
from the true one. You must learn to distinguish, just
because he cannot, between real want of appetite (either
for food generally or for some particular kind of food)
and a morbid fancy which you might help him to con-
quer, or a wilful whim which he ought to be shamed into
conquering himself. I have known a child fancy she
had an emotional reason for not eating a particular kind
of food, which was in reality unsuitable to her. (Delicate
girls, for instance, often have theories about the ' cruelty '
of killing sheep and oxen, which they forget when they
are offered fowl or fish). And, on the other hand, a
patient will often tell you that he does not like or cannot
digest food, when his dislike is due to some association
of ideas.

It is not as well known as it ought to be that the sen-
sation of hunger is, under certain circumstances, posi-
tively delightful. It produces, or at least permits, in some
frames, a sense of spiritual exaltation like that which
results from opium, but of a purer kind. A patient will
sometimes tell you, and quite truly, that he " feels less
comfortable " after eating what you and the doctor con-
sider to be the proper amount and kind of food ; and this
by no means always means that the food has given him
any symptom of indigestion ; it may mean that it has
put an end to an abnormal condition in which mental

102 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

exaltation was making him insensible to physical discom-
fort. And if it means that, then, unfortunately, the
more he shrinks from his food the more need there is
that he should take plenty of it.

If you have to do with that morbid shyness about
giving trouble, of which Miss Nightingale speaks, which
mixes with so many strange fancies and evil tempers,
and which helps to shorten so many valuable lives, you
must make your patient feel by every means in your
power that it gives you pleasure to be asked to do any-
thing for him ; and you must also make it clear to him
that his neglecting to tell you what he wants only en-
tails on you the additional trouble of finding it out for
yourself. And you must be 4 on your guard against an
infinite number of cunning tricks to prevent your finding
it out. There are certain subjects, and this is one of
them, on which the more saintly a man's character is, the
less you can trust to anything he says ; unless, indeed,
when you actually appeal to his honour not to deceive you ;
and even then he may do it unconsciously from habit.

A professional nurse meets with comparatively little
of the difficulty of which I am now speaking. The
sense of routine which she introduces into the arrange-
ments of the sick-room naturally puts an end to many
vagaries on the part of the patient. But I am writing
mainly, not for professional nurses, but for sick people's
relatives and friends. The history of many and many a
sad bereavement might be told briefly in this wise : —
The female head of a family is taken ill. She needs no
surgical treatment, no scientific nursing, nothing (the
doctor says) but ordinary care, such as any commonly in-
telligent woman is qualified to give — nothing, in fact,

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 103

except quietness and plenty of light nourishing food, A
hired nurse would be a needless expense, and the patient
would rather not have a stranger about her. Her daugh-
ters and friends could have no greater pleasure than to
wait on one so good, so unselfish, so beloved ; and so
the matter is settled ; and a very right and wise settle-
ment it would be in many (though not in all) cases, if
only the friends knew how to accomplish that which
they have undertaken. But the very essence of all good-
ness and piety is a certain tendency to devotion and
self-denial, which, when good and pious people are cut
off by illness from their ordinary ways of exercising it,
often manifests itself in the most unexpected and un-
accountable ways. The patient, accustomed to minister
to others and to spend her time in planning to spare them
trouble, now employs her faculties in inventing ingenious
devices for preventing her attendants from " having the
trouble n of carrying out the doctor's instructions ; the
unsuspicious friends fall into the trap ; and the patient
dies of starvation in consequence. One of the best and
truest women I ever knew, deceived her daughters for
weeks by protesting that she could not bear beef-tea
(which the doctor had prescribed for her), and that it
was of no use to make it, for she couldn't and wouldn't
touch it. At last she was surprised into tasting it ; and
pronounced it delicious. And then she confessed that
she had never tasted it before, and had only professed
to dislike it because she supposed that it was a "trouble-
some thing to maUe." Another, a pious Christian and
most affectionate mother, was reported on several suc-
cessive mornings by the friend who had charge of her
during the night, to have been " free from pain, and

1*4 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

quietly asleep for many hours." It seemed strange that
if she did sleep so quietly, she should look most tired
in the morning. With some difficulty I got her to con-
fess that she feigned sleep, although suffering great pain,
to save her attendant the trouble of warming her food in
the night. E:th these ladies died : and in each case the
doctor protested to the last that there was no real disease,
and that the patient was sinking from pure exhaustion.

I knew mat wnat I ani n:w saving souuas a. most
incredible. But the whole of the relation of religious
an 1 benevolent a.ui humanitarian emotion, to the question
of food, forms one of the most startling chapters in the
history of human folly. And those make a great mistake
wh: imagine they have rot rid of the dim uilty by elimi-
nating " fasting" out of the category of professedly religious
observances. On the contrary. Catholic priests complain
that their penitents thwart all their well-meant endeavours
to regulate fasting, by insisting on mistaking for piety a
pleasant quiver of certain nerves caused by exhaustion.

Ail girls ought t; he taught that careless, useless, wilful
fasting is one of the sinful lusts of the nesh." one of
the ways in which we waste, for the sake of a momentary
pleasure, the strength which was given to us to use for
an abiding purpose. Boys are, as a rule, much less liable
to fail into this form of self -indulgence. But you should
always be on the watch for it when you have to do with
either a man or a woman given to religious emotionality,
or to an absorbing devotion to humanity.

Miss Nightingale, and others who profess to teach the
art of nursing, insist strongly on a variety of rules, having
for their object to correct certain habits which careless
nurse- fall into, and which tend to give sick persons a

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 105

distaste for their food. Don t wait till the patient asks
for his meals, but bring them at regular hours. Find out
by observation rather than by questioning what he likes
best. Let anything which you think he will specially
fancy be produced unexpectedly ; and let it come as the
gift of a friend rather than as part of the routine of his
treatment. Don't take your own meals, or cook, or talk
about food, in the sick-room ; don't leave food in the room
between meal times, &c. A professional nurse ought, no
doubt, to observe strictly all these and many such rules.
Her patient is usually a stranger \ she does not know his
whims and fancies ; she may be giving him great annoy-
ance without being in the least aware of it ; and, as she
has nothing but her patient to attend to, she ought to
take care to be on the safe side. But if you have to nurse
a friend and to attend to any of your ordinary business
at the same time, I would not advise you to hamper your-
self with unnecessary and artificial routine. Read all
Miss Nightingale's rules ; they will be valuable as sugges-
tions ; but watch your patient to see which of them you
need to carry out. You must have very little tact if you
cannot find out by a friend's face when you are jarring or
annoying him.

The real principle which underlies all the rules which
I have been speaking of is this : don't cause the patient
to think more than you can help about food merely as
food, or about the effect of it on himself. The more you
can associate ideas of love and care and kindness, and of
other people's enjoyment, with the nervous patient's meals,
the more he will eat and the better he will digest it.

" Don't leave food about the sick-room, and don't ex-
pect the patient to ask for it when he wants it." But

io5 THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

you may, as I said, have business to attend to elsewhere.
At any rate, you ought, for the patient's sake as well as
your own, to get change of air and scene every day. And
if you have no reliable substitute to leave in charge during
your absence, it will be far better that he should ask for
his food and medicine, or even that they should be left
within his reach, than that he should go without them.
Make him feel that his neglecting to take them at the
proper time will entail upon you additional confinement
and anxiety in future ; and do not say too much about the
harm his neglect does to himself. If he perceives that
any failures of yours, or any burdens which you lay upon
him, are due to unavoidable circumstances, or to a con-
scientious desire not to interfere too much with the com-
fort of the rest of the household or unnecessarily to injure
your own health, and never to carelessness or want of
observation, he will be the more likely not to let them do
him more harm than he can help.

And all these little kindly cautions about coming to a
right understanding with the patient are of far more im-
portance than they seem. " Fanciful nonsense" and
u absurd sentimental stuff," strong-minded people call
them ; and so they dismiss the matter. But people whose
lives were valuable have died of such fancies, very, very
often ; that is what I want to make you see. They died
of starvation, because no one understood how fanciful and
sentimental and absurd a good and wise man or woman
can become when he or she is cut off from that healthy
work for others which is the natural antidote to 1 6 non-
sense.'"' Of course I am not suggesting that you can cure
real want of digestive power by imaginary means. Disease
of the stomach is the doctor's business. But if the patient

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS.

107

has — and many patients have — fanciful reasons for not
eating, or sentimental emotions which disturb his diges-
tion, what can you do better than find out some senti-
mental or fanciful reason why he should eat his food and
enjoy it? Strong-minded women are very much to be
envied in many ways ; but for a large class of cases they
are utterly useless as nurses, just because they do not
understand how weak-minded other people can be.

XI. Do not neglect to begin the mental treatment in good
time. Too few people think seriously of it until delirium
is actually threatening. From the time that a person is
put as patient into your charge, you should watch his
symptoms, mental as well as physical. You do not wait
till- the stomach is on the verge of inflammation before
you begin to pay attention to the food. Why should you
take less care for the mental food ? Words act by laws,
just as much as food and medicine do ; and you are
answerable for the effects of yours on your patient, whether
he is delirious or no. When first a morbid fancy begins
to take possession of the mind, the sufferer is not delirious,
for he is half- conscious that his fancy is a delusion, or at
least an exaggeration. Then is the time to bring his
moral sense and his better judgment to your aid, and to
show him that he ought not to let his mind rest on a
subject which makes him false.

You will perhaps reply to this, that, as long as a man
is sane, he has a power of control over the effect of words
on his mind ; and that there is therefore no need for you
to be so particular till he is delirious. But he has also
a power of control over the effect of food on his body.
An unwholesome meal does him less harm if he keeps

108 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

quiet after it, than if he wilfully disturbs and excites
himself immediately. That is no excuse for your giving
him the wrong sort of food. The patient's duty is to
resist so far as he can whatever evil influences, physical
or mental, he may be subjected to ; and your duty is to
prevent his having any avoidable evil influences to resist,
so that the vital power may be left free to grapple with
the disease and with the unavoidable causes of evil which
are sure to be present even when you have done your
best to eliminate them.

XII. In all cases where the moral health is affected,
make your treatment as regular and as little spasmodic as
you can, so as not to let the patient lose ground between
whiles. Look out for motives which will influence him
steadily and continuously and be cumulative in their
effect ; and avoid as much as you can appealing to motives
which tend to wear out and grow weak by use. Try to
make the patient feel that every single effort on his part
is so much gained, whether he be visibly successful or not.
Get him, if you can, to be content to make unsuccessful
efforts. Teach him to feel that the effort to control him-
self is worth making in itself, for your sake, or for the
sake of whatever he cares most about. And make him
feel too, that, apart from all question of success, two
efforts are worth more than one ; and trying for an hour
to be good and to do right, is worth more than six times
as much as trying for ten minutes. He may or may not
succeed in doing exactly the thing you have asked him
to do ; but in any case the steady fixing of his mind on
some one purpose, the continuous effort to do or avoid
doing something for the sake of right, or for love or grati-

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. 109

tude to any one, can hardly fail to brace and invigorate
the nerves.

Something of the idea which prevails in the play-
ground of a public school might be introduced with
advantage into many sick-rooms. Nobody really imagines
that the object for which so much time is expended is
the winning of a few matches. Everybody is the better
for doing his best at cricket ; a boy is none the less a
gainer because he never wTins his way into the glorious
" eleven ; 99 but those who do not play their best fail to
get the good which they might gain by the exercise.

The advice to keep the moral discipline steady applies
especially to what is commonly called "hysterics." An
hysterical patient should never be scolded or startled into
repressing her cries and struggles. Hysteria suddenly
suppressed usually either returns with a violent reaction,
or changes itself into some form of neuralgia or brain
affection. The aim of every one about an hysterical girl
should be to make her feel that hysterics are at a dis-
count in the house ; that no one is particularly alarmed
by or interested in individual attacks, but that, on the
whole, she rather loses caste by being known to be subject
to them. Some friend — some one whom the girl likes
and respects — should take opportunities occasionally,
when alone with her, of explaining to her that she can,
if not control, at least prevent such attacks by care, and
that it is her duty to avoid all such excitement and fatigue
as increase the liability to them. She should never be
irritated by any harshness or by any show of contempt or
want of sympathy while the fit is on her ; but she should
be made to feel steadily and always, what is true whether
she feels it or not, that her disease is a misfortune and

no

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

somewhat of a disgrace, that it imposes unpleasant re-
straints upon her and deprives her of many pleasures.

XIII. And now I have come to a difficulty. I have
something to say which I dare not attempt to explain,
for as yet we know too little ; and I must not dogmatise,
and say, ex cathedrd, " Do this, it is right," giving you no
reason. I will take my privilege as a woman, and ask
those of you who think I ! have taught you anything
worth knowing, to do something in return for me.

Whenever you see a dying person either clutching at
the bed-clothes, or moving his hands vaguely in what is
called the mere restlessness of death, send out of the
room everybody who will not be quiet ; and let some one
who is fairly sensible and has a good firm will, slip his
hands into those of the patient, and fix his eyes steadily
on the dying face, and his mind on the hope of soothing
the last struggle and understanding the last wishes. He
may ask, from time to time, " Do you wish to tell me
anything?" or some such question. More than this I
dare not say. You may see little result the first time it
is tried ; the patient may be really unconscious ; or the
friend may not be sufficiently " en rapport" with him to
elicit anything. But it can hardly do the patient any
harm, and may spare him some suffering. And you are
not unlikely to be rewarded some day for your charity.
In saying this I am not speaking from my own experience
alone.

The doctor and professional nurse may perhaps tell you
that the speechless dying patient is unconscious ; and you
will wonder that I, who have inculcated unquestioning
respect for the doctor's orders, should now advise you

ON MENTAL HYGIENE IN SICKNESS. in

not to believe his assertions. But doctors as a rule do
not carefully study the phenomena of the death-crisis ; and
some of them, therefore, do not know that when a patient
is unconscious of ordinary sights and sounds, he is often
more conscious than ever before in his life of the thoughts
of certain persons, and more keen-sighted than ever as to
the best ways of accomplishing certain ends.

I must warn you that a patient sometimes communi-
cates to his mesmeriser not only his thoughts, but, with
them, some portion of the suffering which is being spared
to himself. Do not, therefore, be alarmed at any symp-
toms which may occur to you after the death of a
patient; keep quiet, get fresh air and light food; and
you will soon be none the worse. Should children live
in the same house as the friend who gives the assistance
of which I spoke, they may exhibit strange phenomena
during the next few weeks. If so, take no notice. If
that kind of thing does harm, it is because there is ten-
sion and fuss about it.

Spiritualist friends often ask me why I never attend
" Stances," and whether I do not care to know more
about the wonders there witnessed. I have, in the natural
course of my business, seen as much as I wish to see ; and
do not think that anything I could witness at a seance
would add to my conviction of the existence of a spirit-
world.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE
AND THEOLOGY.

ll

" II est temps que la science s'habitue a prendre son bien partout
ou elle le trouve." — Renan.

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of glory shall
come in." — Ps. xxiv. 7.

" The hireling fleeth ; because he is an hireling."

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND
THEOLOGY.

At the conclusion of one of our former lessons some of
you suggested to me a difficulty to which I should now
like to give a few moments' consideration. Is it right, you
asked, to treat theological and moral questions as if they
were only a matter of nerves and brain and forces ? Do not
the doctors who so treat them, drift into a shocking habit
of laughing at theology altogether, as if it were all the
invention of brain-sick devotees? Is it right even to
read books written by such men, whatever be the practical
benefit to be gained from them ? In reply, I must beg to
remind you of the principle which we laid down from
the first, viz., that, whether it be wrong or no, it is at
least very unscientific to treat anything whatever as if it
were " only " any other thing. I think it is right to
treat religious and moral questions as if they depended
on forces, simply because the fact is that they do depend
on forces. I do not think it right so to treat theological
questions. But that is another matter altogether. So
far as I know, I have, in speaking to you, hardly touched
on any theological question at all.

Theology means the knowledge of God. The know-
ledge of the works of God (of which man is one)
is not theology, it is science. The character of our

n6 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Inspirer Himself is a theological question. It is for
science to show us how we may become most receptive
of His inspiration, and the conditions, physical, mental,
and moral, upon which that inspiration is most health-
giving and least disturbing, both to our bodies and our
minds.

I will illustrate what I mean by an example or two.

That God is a Being whom it is safe to trust, is a truth
of theology. But that man is a creature intended to
trust in God, and that the more men trust in God the
more their intellect will expand and their aspirations be
realised, are truths of science. (By science I mean all know-
ledge derived from experience, and from the observation
and classification of facts or phenomena, whether physical
or mental). Again : That God is a Benevolent Being is
a theological proposition, But it is science, i.e. observa-
tion, which teaches us that it is good for us to have our
kindly feelings called out ; and that the exercise of such
feelings is more healthy when they are stimulated by the
desire to imitate some benevolent object of worship than
by mere impersonal love for goodness as such.

One constantly hears from the pulpit a sweeping
assertion that "the heart of man naturally craves for
some Mediator between man and God." Now, even sup-
posing this to be true, it would be a psychological truth,
and have about as much to do with theology as has the
tendency of vine-tendrils to seek for support. But, as it
happens, it is no truth at all, but a psychological blunder.
It is true that a large proportion of mankind can in no
way so well realise either the holiness or the love of God,
as by thinking of Him under a human likeness. It may
be also true, that God has chosen to reveal Himself under a

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 117

human likeness ; and that He intends and wills that all
men should know it. But our belief in this theological
truth does not alter psychological facts. It is a fact that
in a certain small, but I believe an increasing number
of human minds, the especially human affections are
extremely weak, and, owing to unfortunate circumstances,
have been allowed to remain comparatively inactive. To
such minds, thinking of God under a human likeness
feels very like losing sight of God altogether. It is
probable, nay, I suppose certain, that if such persons had
seen Christ in the flesh, His overpowering magnetism
would have awakened their dormant human sentiments.
But to assert that the hearts of such persons crave for a
human Mediator to worship, in the face of their own
passionate protest that they feel no such craving, that
they cannot even conceive what those mean who profess
to feel it, that all the love they ever felt for anything in
human shape is as nothing compared to their love for
their unseen Teacher (or for the Author of Nature, as the
bent of their minds may be), that their hearts recoil from
the idea of admitting any Mediator between Him and
themselves, and that they feel less fear of any hell which
He could make, than of being taken out of His hands, is
as cruel as it is absurd.

If preachers want to teach their congregations psycho-
logy they have a right to do so, and indeed could hardly
be more usefully employed. But psychology being a
science, those who are to teach it should study it scienti-
fically, i.e., by examining facts in detail, and by the light
of known scientific laws. To jump from a theological
proposition to a psychological one is simply silly \ and I
am certain that the main reason why scientific men so

1 1 s

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

often reject what is called theology is, that the people
who profess to teach it begin by some utterly false state-
ment about psychology or some other science. Scientific
men simply do not believe in the honesty or earnestness
of any one who makes false statements about matters of
fact, as to which he need not have spoken at all if he did
not like the trouble of ascertaining the truth.

And remember, the more sure we are that the results
of two departments of study must ultimately approach and
throw light on each other, the more imperatively necessary
it becomes that we should exercise great caution in keep-
ing distinct the processes by which those results are arrived
at. We gain a better idea of an object by comparing pic-
tures, taken from different points of view, than either picture
alone would have given us. But if each artist claimed the
right to dictate that the canvases of the others should be
modified because of what he saw, what a jumble they would
make ! Just such a jumble do students make when they
try to meddle prematurely in each other's work, instead of
agreeing to work independently for a common end When
logicians have grappled with the question of the existence
of a Deity, they have evaporated Him into an idea while
proving His personality. When doctors have presumed
to try to investigate His nature, they have resolved Him
into a force, just when they had conclusively demonstrated
that the thing man most needs on earth is to trust in a
living, loving Deliverer. And when theologians have
attempted to dogmatise about the ways in which men can,
or the conditions on which they may approach God, they
have always represented Him as (more or less l) like a

1 There is a great deal of difference between the "more" and the

<;les3.J?

CLAIMS OF SCIEXCE AXD THEOLOGY. 119

capricious fiend, even though they made the first condi-
tion of His favour to consist in a belief in His perfect
justice and mercy.

But does not the Bible treat of all three questions
together, and almost as if they were one and the same ?
Undoubtedly it does. And if the Bible says: "By the
Word of the Lord the heavens were made," is that any
reason why Xewton should not study the laws of gravita-
tion ? If Si Paul says that men are members of a body,
do you infer from that that Harvey had no right to dis-
cover the circulation of the blood by purely scientific
investigation ? And if Xewton and Harvey were right,
why should we not try to find out all we can about the
action of men's minds on each other, or about the inter-
action of body and brain, by observation and experiment !
Do you think the Bible was put into the world for the
purpose of supplying a text-book for one profession only I
It is every man's text-book and birthright ; and every
man has a right to approach it from his own standing-
point and get what help he can from it for his own work :
or it can be no gift from the Lord of men.

If science proves, as I think it does, that man is meant
to be the same sort of being (just, true, loving), which
theology proclaims that God is, so much the better for
the credit of the Book which declares that man was made
in the Image of God. If science shows, as I think it does,
that there can be no lasting bonds between men except
such as are cemented by mutual self-sacrifice, so much the
better for the credit of the other Book which gives the
name of 1 Communion ' to the commemoration of a great
sacrifice. But I warn you, once for all, that if you mean
to bring your children up rationally, you will find some-

120

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

thing to think about besides taking care of the credit of
any book. If young mothers have any business at all
with books, it is to get help from them in taking care
of babies.

Do you remember that sweet story of an intellectual
Princess and a romantic warrior, who came to a stop in
the middle of a discussion about whether, and how, and
for what motives, it is lawful for women to seek for
knowledge ? And then —

" A bird,

That early woke to feed her little ones,
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for Light ! ,?

And she got it, did she not ? !Not very much at first ;
but so much at least as enabled her to begin her work. It
would have been a good while before any light at all came
to her, if she had let any one persuade her to shut her
eyes in terror of the darkness. Poor little birdie ! such a
tiny creature in this big world ! I often wonder what she
thought about the talk of those two clever people. Some
one had put four hungry birdlings into her nest ; Some one
had made the sun begin to shine just when they began to
wake ; Some one, she hoped, would send food for them ;
and she must go and hunt for it • that was her philosophy
of life. If men would dig out what she wanted, so
that it should be ready for her, well and good, she would
thank them heartily. But as to which kind of food it
was safe for her to pick up, on that point she intended
to trust to her instincts and her experience. If she let
people bewilder her poor little brain with contradictory
a priori theories about it, what would become of the bird-
lings ? She was not going to give them what she had
not first tasted herself. If she got hold of the wrong

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 121

kind of material and made herself sick, why, perhaps,
some one would cure her. And if not the birdie knew (as
each in its own way, every creature under heaven does
know, unless its instincts have been utterly deadened by
false theories), that it is better to enter, maimed and
blinded, into the life that is prepared for those who try
to do their appointed work at all risks to themselves, than
with the outward semblance of health to be cast into the
hell which is reserved for those who shrink from it.

If you and I were nuns, it might be a legitimate form
of recreation for us to sit listening to priests denouncing
" carnal wisdom " in our convent chapels. If we were
flippant idle girls, there might be great risk of our being
led astray by associating with scientific men who laugh at
" superstition " across their dinner tables. But life is, I
hope, a more serious business for mothers. Our children
are realities; and their fevers and their fancies, their
hearts and their nerves, their tempers and their diges-
tions, are for us realities too. Very stern and dreadful
ones we sometimes think them; very blessed ones we
may hereafter find them out to have been. And He who
made them put them into our charge. That is a truth
of which no one can rob us, unless we choose to let it
go, though I have sometimes felt as if everything else
that I knew about Him had been swept away from me
in the tempest of discussion. And how shall we answer
to Him at the last if we let the help which He is send-
ing us by one man be robbed from us by another man 1

Many very good people, I know, attribute the cures
effected by mesmerism to satanic agency. The same
explanation has been offered (also by good people), of the
printing press and the Reformation, of the steam engine

122

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

and the telegraph, of extra large steamboats, and of par-
ticularly accurate books ; also of the eloquence, the intel-
lectual power and the moral earnestness of many pious
but heterodox preachers ; and of a few other things be-
sides. If people suppose that an evil tree can bring forth
good fruits, there is no use in arguing the point ; the
only rational answer that can be given to them was given
long ago : If Satan really has taken a fancy to help man
to do good, he ought to be allowed to undermine his own
power as fast as he likes ; but if it should after all be
God Himself who is teaching us, then no doubt the king-
dom of God is come unto us.

The truth is, believe me, that very few things go on
upon this planet in which Ormuzd and Ahriman do not
each have some share. There are plenty of mesmeric
proceedings which are unquestionably satanic enough.

Whenever you hear any person assert that his neigh-
bour's love for any particular line of inquiry "springs
from unbelief in God and must lead to immorality," or
that it " springs from ignorance of science, and must lead
to superstition," you may take it for granted that he is
exceeding his commission. Xo form of mental activity
can spring from either ignorance or unbelief. Nothing
but selfishness and conceit can lead to either superstition
or immorality. If any study leads, or seems to lead, a
man astray, be sure that it is not the study itself which
is so leading him, but the self-love which mingles with
his desire to know the truth. The wisest Teacher that
ever lived has taught us to compare the Spirit, by which
God teaches men, to the wind which (as we now know)
advances very often, not in one straight line, but by
blowing round and round in all directions at once. Trust

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 123

Him, and do not let yourselves be frightened by people
who tell you that other people are going the wrong ivay.
Every way is the right way for somebody or other. The
direction in which you ought to travel must depend on
the point at which you have arrived. The wrong way
at any point is to be too sure that you are going quite
right, and to allow yourself to fly off at a tangent in the
direction towards which you feel yourself specially im-
pelled; that way is always wrong, because it takes you
further and further from the calm centre of progress
which it ought to be the aim of every one to reach.

How are we to find out whereabouts that calm centre
is ? Suppose such a thing were possible as that a whole
fleet of ships were scattered over the sea in a hurricane,
and all drifting different ways. Then the still centre
would be just between any two which were drifting in
exactly opposite directions. If you felt the wind coming
on you from the north, your way to reach the calm
centre would be to steer as straight as you could towards
somebody who felt the wind coming upon him from the
south. I do not say that you ought to turn round and
try to go in the direction towards ivhich he felt impelled
to go. By no means ; you ought to try and steer toivards
the man himself. Not in the direction of his wind, nor
of your own, but in the line (at right angles to both
winds) which joins you and him.

The Jews of old time were looking out eagerly for a
Messiah. They wanted some one who should settle for them
their disputed points of law, who should tell them exactly
how much they ought to yield to one another, and who,
above all, should give them an entire victory over, and
utterly rid them of, their great enemies, the Romans.

I24 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

When Jesus came, His solution of all their questions was,
" Resist not evil ; if any man will take away thy coat let
him have thy cloak also ; do good to them that hate you."
And the Jews and the Romans stopped quarrelling for
once, and agreed to get rid of that unsatisfactory and
troublesome teacher, ifow-a-days we want very much
some one to tell us exactly how far we are bound to prac-
tise toleration towards those who differ from us on points
of theological belief or of scientific opinion ; and especially
we want some one to rid the world of all those who insist
on looking at life from an entirely opposite point of view to
our own. And if Jesus came back on the earth now, I
cannot help thinking that His solution would be, " Study
those who misunderstand you ; learn from those who
despise you ; and give all the help you can to those who
are trying to hinder you." I wonder what sort of a reception
He would get ! We hardly ever try heartily to understand
each other ; and, what is far, far worse, we do not heartily
try to make others understand us. At least, if we occa-
sionally try to do so, we do not steadily and patiently
endeavour to avoid saying what will cause others to mis-
understand us. I have heard thoughtful and good men
sneer, before their religious acquaintance, ay, and before
their own wives and children, at all religion and all theo-
logy ; and talk by the hour together as if no one could
know anything about the great Creator ; as if the attempt
to learn anything about Him were absurd; as if our
human love and sense of right were only transitory and
phenomenal ; the consequences, not the causes, of the laws
of our being. And I know that in so doing they were
belying the convictions of their hearts. As long as they
are discussing other people's theories, such men can sneer

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 125

as if nothing in heaven or earth were sacred to them.
But when those very same men begin to talk quietly
about their own favourite study (whatever it may happen
to be), and about sacred Nature, the Author and Teacher
of it, they cannot help showing that they feel (though
perhaps without definitely saying so to themselves) as
though Nature were a person, infinitely loving and true
and who personally loves them. For their instinct recog-
nises, in spite of them, the grand old doctrine, which is
essential to all healthy theology and which underlies all
true science : that the things on earth are shadows of
things in the unseen heavens ; that physical facts and
human relationships are projections upon matter of eternal
verities.

I do not wonder that you were startled at first by the
suggestion that moral truths are not, like mathematical
ones, abstract truths ; but depend, for their application
to us at least, upon the structure of our heads. No
matter how a set of creatures might be constituted, twice
two of them must make four of them, under all conceiv-
able circumstances. Whereas the world might have been
so constituted, apparently, as to give to selfish cleverness
or brute force the upper hand in the long run. Might
have been; only as it " happens" it was not so consti-
tuted. And why not ? Oh ! never doubt that there are
" Laws in Hades " who will own as their " brothers " the
laws of earth.1

People often .warn us that we ought not to venture
into certain regions of interesting investigation, because,
if we do, we shall meet with the devil ! Now can you
believe that Satan, that any evil thing, has been gifted

1 Crito.

126 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

by God with enough of His own majesty and might to
stop the progress of scientific inquiry? Who is Satan,
that we should be scared at every turn by the sound of
his name ? He goes about, we are told, as a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour ; which is a reason why
we are to be sober and vigilant, but not a reason for
letting him hinder us from going where there is any
good to be got. On the contrary, we are told to "resist
him." And I want you to notice that analogies, when
true at all, are true in a higher and deeper sense than
could be realised when they were first perceived. I have
given you one instance above : " The wind bloweth where
it listeth." This one, of the devil as a roaring lion, is
another. The lion, two thousand years ago, was a for-
midable foe to man ; a real obstruction to exploration
and cultivation. At the present day he cannot be said
to constitute a serious danger to any except savages ;
a few rash people who go off alone hunting for the sake
of excitement fall victims now and then ; but, as a general
proposition, we may say that civilised man is the lion's
master. No enterprise, worth undertaking in itself, is
desisted from, now-a-days, on the ground that the " dis-
trict is infested with lions." If the lion stands in the
way of progress, so much the worse for the lion. We
have rifles with which we can take a sure aim at him ;
we know the exact size of the bullet which will bring
him down ; we dissect him in the interests of science ; we
put sections of him under our microscopes and his skeleton
in a museum ; his skin forms an ornamental hearthrug ;
and the rest of him no doubt makes excellent manure.
And if St. Peter's analogy be a truly inspired, not a
forced and manufactured one, it must hold good to the

CLAIMS OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 127

end. Along the same road which the type has gone,
must the antitype go also ; it is only a question of time ;
as it has been with the lion, so must it be with the devil.

We shall never get God under our microscopes ; never,
never, never ; nor fix His place, nor measure His dimen-
sions ; but all that is evil (or I would rather say, every-
thing in the universe which affects us evilly) is, I
devoutly believe, the heritage of science ; her legitimate
prize ; the stimulus to her best energies ; the food which
she will gradually consume, and turn into blossom and
fruit.

CHAPTER V.
THOUGHT-READING.

" Whoever shall cause to stumble one of these little ones, it were
better for him that he were cast into the depths of the sea."

" Study — to do your own business."

" It is in nurseries and sick-rooms, and by death-beds that

women should learn theology."

George Boole.

•

CHAPTER V.

THO UGHT-READING.

Most persons are now familiar with the idea that some
children, and even a few adults, are gifted with the power
of voluntarily seeing into the thoughts of those around
them, and especially of the persons with whom they are
in certain close relations. There is another phase of the
same phenomenon, about which much less has been
written — a tendency to involuntary, and often unconscious,
thought-reading. With the help of a small circle of
friends, I have endeavoured to study this singular abnor-
mality. I cannot pretend that we have arrived at any
very definite results. The subject is, for many reasons,
of serious importance, and will repay the attention of
any one who has opportunities for observation such as
every school affords. I will state as briefly as I can the
conclusions to which we have been led, only premising
that I do not give them as final, nor do I wish to im-
pose my opinions on any one. I offer them rather as
affording a clue to beginners as to the direction in which
it may be most useful to observe. For the sake of brevity
and convenience, I will not too often repeat such phrases
as " I think," " I believe," or "so far as I have been able
to observe," but beg you to accept once for all the assur-
ance than I speak in no spirit of dogmatism, but simply

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

say what I have seen, in the earnest hope that others may
see further and more clearly.

Thought-reading would appear to be in a certain sense
the normal condition of infancy : nature's provision for
helping us over the first difficulty of entering into com-
munication with our species. It seems to me highly
probable that every child of a year old, not an absolute
idiot, is in a certain vague, elementary way, a thought-
reader, or rather an impression-reader. The impressions
on the minds of the adults around him are shadowed in
some way on his brain. Just as, a few weeks after birth,
the sutures of a child's skull should close, so, at some age
under six years, some closure or hardening process should
go on in his mini He is learning to receive impressions
through his outer senses, and the more direct mode of
reception normal in infancy is becoming closed for him.
But it :: :: , ;ently happens that this mental closure

is delayed to twelve or fourteen years, sometimes till
eighteen or twenty : occasionally it never takes place at
all. The causes of this retardation of mental closure are
I believe unknown. I have observed it where there has
been any great discrepancy between the parents, whether
in age, in culture, or in moral earnestness. I do not
remember ever to have seen it in children whose parents
were pretty equally matched in all these respects.

The infant, as I said, seems to be an impression or
sensation-reader. If the faculty is retained after the
child is capable of thought, he becomes a thought-reader.

If the thought-reading child is intellectually of low
type, he can be made what some common exhibitors of
mesmeric tricks call a " clairvoyant" (Many clairvoyants
are I know of high type ; but they do not easily lend

THO UGH T -READING.

133

themselves to purposes of vulgar exhibition.) If he does
not fall into the hands of an exhibitor, he drifts into
growing like the persons who happen to gain most
influence over him. He is sure to become the slave and
tool of somebody or other ; and the best we can hope for
him is that he may find a sensible and virtuous master.

But the retardation of mental closure is often accom-
panied by intellectual and moral qualities of no mean
order ; in which case something very different from any-
thing commonly known as clairvoyance is the result.
The phenomenon seems to have been common among the
early Hebrews, and was more studied among them than
it has been of late by western nations.

This retardation of mental closure of which I am
speaking, is often accompanied by the prolongation into
mature years of a peculiar kind of sensitiveness to
association, such as ordinary people possess only in early
childhood. At any time in the line of such a sensitive
subject, a mere accidental association of ideas or emotions
may be sufficient to create, or at least develop, a faculty
which he was not previously known to possess.

The child affected by involuntary thought-reading is
usually in a special relation of sympathy with one or
more adults, whose thoughts affect him more than do
those of other people. He by no means always reproduces
the thought of the adult in the same form in which it
existed in the mind of the latter. Often some concrete
and picturesque version of it is reflected on to his brain,
without his thinking the thought itself at all. Absence
from the person with wThom he is in this peculiar relation
does not immediately cause the thought-transference to
cease. If two or three people, under whose influence he

134

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

is, hold a very earnest conversation together, the ten-
dency is temporarily heightened ; especially, I believe, if
the conversation is held after the child is asleep.

A child who has this faculty is always what is called a
" peculiar " child. Though usually tenacious in his affec-
tions, he is almost always capricious in the expression of
affection. He is often conscious of something in the
mind of a person who wishes to caress him, or of some
one else who may be present, which makes caresses, as he
feels, a desecration. He is apt to think people untrue,
being vaguely conscious of some discrepancy between
their thoughts and their words. He takes strong likes
and dislikes. He has usually a lack of what the Greeks
called "storge," i.e., mere clinging to one's own family as
such. He cares for individuals or dislikes them per-
sonally ; the fact that they are related to him by ties of
blood affects him little in any way; unless indeed too
much is expected of him in the way of recognition of
such ties, in which case they may become a cause of in-
tense dislike. Some careful training is needed to make
him understand the use and sacredness of family ties ;
though, when once he has been made to understand, he
is usually exceptionally loyal to them. As he grows
older he often develops strong instincts of purity, which,
unfortunately, too often run counter to established con-
ventions. He will, perhaps, loathe the touch of some
highly respected individuals, asserting that they are im-
pure ; occasionally he alarms his family by making him-
self the champion of some lawless outcast, in whom he
can detect no impurity.

Great cruelty is often practised towards such children
by compelling them to kiss and allow themselves to be

THOUGHT-READING.

135

caressed by persons from whom they shrink. They,
more emphatically than other children, need steady dis-
cipline to prevent them from drifting into caprice and
irregularity in the discharge of their duties ; but it seems
to me that such discipline should, as much as possible,
be confined to things that can fairly be considered in the
light of actual duty or of mere formal courtesy ; personal
contact should never be enforced, nor should any pressure
be put on the use of endearing expressions ; and the
child's recreation time should be as little as possible in-
terfered with ; for what is recreation to others may be
the severest labour to him.

As a compensation for the difficulties indicated above,
and for the life of suffering which the involuntary thought-
reader usually leads till what I have called the " mental
closure " has taken place, he has one great advantage over
others. If his health resists the mental suffering to which
he is exposed, and he lives to grow up, he begins his adult
existence endowed with a knowledge of human nature,
acquired during his years of abnormal lucidity, which
corrects many prejudices and makes it specially easy for
him to acquire comprehensive and philosophic views of
life.

He is exposed to two great dangers in the course of his
early education ; the first arising from lack of confidence
between his father and mother; the second from the
ambition of his teachers. I will say a few words about
each of these sources of danger ; and first of the latter.

A child such as I am describing often gets into sym-
pathy with one or more of his teachers ; and when that
is the case he appears a prodigy of intellectual power.
One teacher after another informs the parents that the

136

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

child has a special aptitude for his or her particular
subject. If he is placed under a tutor or " coach " who
happens to possess (as many successful teachers do) a high
degree of mesmeric power, the child accomplishes marvels.
Inasmuch, however, as the work which he is doing so
rapidly and successfully is probably essentially unsuited
to him, it tells on his vital energies, though sometimes in
a way which only a skilled medical eye is able to detect
as long as the stimulus of contact with the teacher is con-
stantly present. As soon as the contact comes to an end,
if not before, the results become obvious ; the prodigy
loses his wonderful mental power. Perhaps he suddenly
bursts a blood-vessel, goes into rapid decline, becomes
insane, or takes to drinking ; or in some way or other
fails utterly. "Whereupon the disaster is attributed to
" over- work ; " it being in truth rather the result of
unsuitable icork made possible by over-magnetisation from
one person.

And this brings me to the point about which I feel
most sure in connection with this class of children. And
as the caution which I am going to give on their behalf
is, in a minor degree, needful to be observed for all
children, there is all the less danger of my doing harm
by insisting on it. As soon as a child, and especially a
thought-reading child, has succumbed thoroughly to the
magnetism or influence of any one person, it is right to
secure for him counter-influence, equally strong, from
some person of widely-different temperament. A parent
should not (except in rare cases of immoral or highly
injudicious use of influence) attempt any direct inter-
ference with a child being "too fond" of any teacher;
but the child should, as soon as the over-fondness is

THO UGHT-READING.

137

observed, be exposed to powerful counter-influence from
some person of opposite tastes, temperament, and mental
habits.

I was endeavouring the other day to explain to a pro-
fessional exhibitor of clairvoyants the need of this rule,
on grounds of physical and moral hygiene. He naively
replied that he did not know anything about that ; but
he had observed that "it spoils them for purposes of ex-
hibition." It struck me that the gentleman had enun-
ciated a wider truth than he was perhaps himself aware of.
Many a Senior Wrangler without any great original
mathematical power, many a winner of musical scholar-
ships without true musical genius, would have been
" spoiled for purposes of exhibition," and also saved from
premature destruction, had the parents of the prodigy
known the need and value of well-arranged counter-
magnetisation or balance of influence.

But here we are met by a serious difficulty. Har-
monious counter-magnetism is life to such children, and
in a measure to all children. But antagonistic magnetism
is poison to them To find two teachers whose ideas,
tastes, feelings, and natural tendencies are as different
as possible, who are equal in the power of gaining
affection, and who will cordially agree not to disturb
each other's influence over a pupil — such is the problem
which nature is setting before the mother of every
thought-reading child.

Those who despair of the future of our race, because of
the complications due to heredity and to the increasing
nervousness of civilised man, have, I think, little idea of
the stores of recuperative- power which lie hidden away
and almost inaccessible, waiting till a well-established

138 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

system of harmonious counter-magnetisation shall prevail
over the whole domain of education.

Of the evils of unharmonised and antagonistic counter-
magnetism I have next to speak Many years ago, I wrote
a tale, founded on fact, to illustrate these evils. Perhaps
I can hardly do better than to relate a part of it here.
The peculiar form of religious belief to which my story
alludes has gone out of fashion ; it will, therefore, be
evident that my intention is not to attack an almost
obsolete superstition, but to point out how, without the
least quarrelling, ill-temper, or unkindness, parents may
injure a child by the mere fact of omitting to come to an
understanding on serious subjects. It is, alas ! no fiction,
but an o'er true tale. I do not pretend that the circum-
stances which I am going to relate occurred exactly as I
shall relate them ; but in all its essential features my
picture is, I assure you, under — not over — drawn ; and it
is drawn from an original not very uncommon. The
tragic facts which continually come before one surpass all
my powers of invention.

A mother has taken a little girl to consult a physician,
and this is her account of the case. The child has been
always rather fragile and delicate, but until lately has
appeared on the whole healthy. For some weeks past,
however, her appetite has been failing, and she has been
languid, and at last a local eruption, hereditary in the
family, has appeared, which makes her restless. She is
usually a good child on the whole, and a great chatterer,
though given to fits of dogged obstinacy. Of late she
has been silent and ill-tempered, and goes into a corner
alone to cry. " What do you give her to eat 1 " asks the
doctor. "Oh! plain food," replies the mother. " We

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139

never allow our children's appetites to be pampered ; and
this little one is very good in that respect, she never
seems to care what she eats ; " (which, being interpreted,
means that, the parents having got hold of a silly theory
that greediness is a thing to be checked in all children,
this poor little creature, who could not have been made
greedy by any pampering, and to whom the act of eating
ought to have been made pleasant in every possible way,
has been systematically wrongly fed, till at last her
digestion has been impaired). "I hope you don't make
her study much," says the doctor. " No ; she has plenty
of time for play. But she is so fond of her books we
can scarcely coax her away from them." "Does she sleep
well ? " " Yes, very well. I send her to bed early, and
nurse finds her always fast asleep when she fetches the
candle." " You don't let her read much at night the last
thing before she goes to bed?" "Oh no, we always
have the children in to talk to us for the last hour before
bedtime." " Can you find no sort of play that would
amuse her ? " " She cares for nothing very much but
books, except her pet animals. She is never tired of
tending them." " Well, that's a good occupation for
her," says the doctor (who however does not quite know
what an exciting subject " pet animals " really is to a
certain class of children ; or perhaps he would not speak
so positively). The doctor is puzzled. He looks steadily
at his patient. There is a strange light in those sad
weary eyes, a dogged resolution on that puckered brow,
which would tell a fearful tale if she were thirty. But
what can such an infant have upon her mind ? "I
wonder what she thinks about when she goes off to cry,"
he says to himself. But a true instinct warns him that

140 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

some evil genius has got into that house ; and that he
might as well ask the mother to translate the Vedas, as
to find out what a child is crying about. He gives a
prescription for the rash, and orders the child to be kept
warm and have light nourishing food. " Don't let her
read melancholy books or be much alone," is his parting
advice.

Now let us see if we can find out what the little crea-
ture cries about.

Her father, who grew up in the habit of going to
church like other people, without any particular reason
for doing so, except that other people do, has been think-
ing intently for some time past of some of the problems
which are stirring the mind of the age. He has been
wondering whether He whom science reveals as the
author of law, and the Bible speaks of as a God of mercy,
can possibly mean to do all the lawless and merciless
things which it seems to be the fashion to take it for
granted that He will do. He has one or two friends with
whom he sometimes speaks on the subject, when his wife
is not by. For his wife is a very religious woman, and
she would be greatly shocked to hear of his doubts. She
would never really understand him. And she might
bring him into trouble with the clergyman, who is a
good man in his way and very useful among the poor ;
it would be a pity to quarrel with him. And besides,
one of his friends is a young and handsome woman who
is considered "a strange girl" in many ways; whom
gentlemen call " Hypatia," and whom most ladies rather
dislike. Hypatia is not considered "religious;" but how
her soul flashes into her great black eyes sometimes, when
they are talking of the great All-Father of men and

THO UGHT-READING.

141

beasts ! One night our little girls father and his friends
had an animated discussion about Plato, in which Hypatia
had taken part with a kitten on her lap, while the wife
sat sewing in silence. After the departure of the guests
the wife remarked that Hypatia " appeared to be very
fond of profane learning, and of masculine studies ; " that
she " seemed to court the notice of gentlemen," and was
" reported to be unsound in her theological opinions."

No ; on the whole he does not think it would ever do
to let his wife know that he shares Hypatia's " unsound-
ness."

He would like to tell the little girl, his favourite (the
most like him of all his children), in a simple form suited
to a child's capacity, something of that wonderful and
holy hope which has dawned like the day-spring from on
high over his heart. But how can he interfere with what
is especially a mother's province, the religious instruction
given in the nursery ? Besides, if he wished to do it, he
would not know exactly what to tell the child. So he
dwells lovingly and reverently, when talking to her, on
the beauty and order of Nature ; and hopes that the seed
thus sown may spring up and grow in her heart at some
future time. As to anything doctrinal, — why, he will
keep his thoughts to himself.

As if any of us could do that !

Our poor little girl's brain has become magnetised with
both her father's intellectual doubts and her mother's
suspiciousness ; and as the parents will not, and the child
dares not, take the natural heaven-sent remedy of family
confidence, thoughts of doubt and distrust, which at
another time might have flitted across her mind without
resting on it a moment, have found there a congenial

142

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

home. And the consequence to her bodily health we
have seen.

What has it been to her mind? When the nurse
fetches the candle she finds the child asleep, she tells the
mother. Now, a few weeks ago, the poor little creature
committed the mighty crime of bursting into a flood of
tears because her brother snatched her doll away suddenly.
Some time afterwards her parents came into the room and
found her crying still, and asked what was the matter ?
Feeling ill and wretched, and having a vague conscious-
ness that her brother's rudeness was not the real cause of
her little outbreak of temper, she replied, "nothing."
Whereupon her father, who had not heard about the doll,
told her that it was silly to cry for nothing; and her
mother who had, said that it was naughty to be so cross.
If that sad " nothing " could have been interpreted by
the instincts of a devoted mother or the wisdom of a
nurse trained to observe, this illness might have been pre-
vented. But highly sensitive children of this kind have
naturally some amount of dramatic talent; and, when they
are misunderstood and roughly handled, they learn the
use of it for self-protection. Ever since that day the
child has repressed her tears as much as possible during
the daytime, unless some lucky chance affords her a
quiet corner where she can be alone. The moment she
hears her nurse coming for the candle at night, she turns
her head to the wall and pretends to be asleep, till the
door is closed and she is once more alone ; and then she
bursts into a passionate fit of weeping.

" How hot I feel," she sobs out at length, under her
breath; "mamma said I was feverish. People die in
fever sometimes. I wonder whether I am going to die.

THO UGHT -READING.

143

I shouldn't be sorry, as far as dying goes. Only, suppose
I am not saved. Suppose I have to go to hell ; that
would be for ever and ever. I wonder whether I am
good enough for God to take me to heaven. I don't
think so. I do try very hard ; but I feel so angry some-
times, and they say I am obstinate. Perhaps God
would forgive me though, and take me to heaven. But
that would be nearly as bad. The music would make me
cry so, and the light would make my head ache ; and I
shouldn't like to see all those strange people, and have no
dog, nor cat, nor books. There would be nothing but
praying and singing ; and I should have to make believe
to like it.

I wonder whether there mightn't be some one to teach
me there, even without books. I do like lessons so. You
can go on finding out what is true about them ; and it
always comes right if you go on long enough ; and it is
never saucy to want to know all about them. I should
like to go into some cool dark place, and have some good
spirit near me who would teach me for ever, and never
let me see anybody ever again. Only, I should like God
to take care of my poor little cat and make her happy.
She was in such pain before she died. But mamma says
God doesn't do anything to repay cats for what they
suffer.

What's that in the room ? It looks all light. Is any
one calling me ? Oh ! it was only my fancy. Papa told
me never to mind fancies that came in the dark. How
hot my head is ! I wish I could go to sleep. Oh ! I wish
there was no hell, and no heaven, and no God, and that
I might die and sleep always."

One evening the father said to his friends that if the

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Maker of the universe really required men to stifle their
convictions, as religious books assert, He should rather be
called the Father of Lies than a God of Truth. What
awful dreams haunted the child that night we need not
ask. But if you could have followed her unseen when
she went off alone with her dog next day (to sulk, as her
brothers said), you might have heard her talking to it in
something like this way : "I didn't hurt you, did I,
Carlo ? I was only in fun when I said you were saucy
to tell me I was in the wrong. I was only pretending to
punish you. You know I love you dearly, Carlo ; I
would not hurt you for the world. I slap my dolly hard ;
but then you know she can't feel. I would not do so to
you ; it would be cruel. For I am a real girl and I love
you, Carlo. Mamma and nurse punish me ; *but I won-
der what mamma and nurse really are ? There is a bad
fairy in my story-book who made herself look like a nice

pretty lady. I wonder " At this point the poor

child's imagination becomes delirious for a time, and runs
riot in the wildest horrors.

What proportion of the children who have such
thoughts live to grow up I have no idea. A medical
friend tells me that he believes the large majority of those
wTho are born with any great power of moral insight, and
who might have become reformers, are driven by the un-
reality of our systems of moral culture into mad-houses or
early graves. Another, who had paid special attention to
the subject of thought-reading and unconscious mes-
merism, said to me, "Crucifying and burning were merciful
inventions compared to laying the foundation of nervous
affections in the constitutions of young children, and
worrying thinking men into insanity and heart disease ;

THOUGHT-READING.

145

and that is what people are doing now-a-days in the name
of religion and morals." But I do not want to scare
you with sensational horrors, or to write a new martyro-
logy ; I pass over the most ghastly features of my sub-
ject; I only want to direct your attention to facts which
are going on in nurseries around us ; in yours and mine,
for all we know. Ay, when you were confiding to a
friend in your drawing-room that Emma was " growing
perverse from her papa's petting," or that Tommy wanted
" a dose of castor-oil, for he wouldn't be so cross if his
stomach wasn't out of order," Emma or Tommy may have
been carrying on such a fight with horror in the dark as
you read of in the Pilgrim's Progress, but never thought
of as reality in your lives.

Those who live through such experience usually grow
up somewhat reserved and odd. They do not give their
confidence unless it is sought. People do not know
much about them. Some are pious and fond of going to
church • but are felt by their religious acquaintance to be
somehow unsatisfactory. They do not seem to mean
quite the same thing as ordinary people, even when they
use the same words. Others are " Infidels," and shudder
when they hear the Bible spoken of. The horror of
association overpowers their reason when the Book is
named.

The particular child of whom we are speaking is one
of those who recover. The love of Nature is, in one
sense, a great healer. The child's illness comes one night
to a crisis, in which she catches, as in a vision, a glimpse
of something gloriously lovely in the wonders of creation ;
and at that time her health begins to improve. Now
let us see the effect of the attack on her future develop-

K

146

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

ment. The physician whom her mother consulted has
rather hindered than helped her moral recovery ; for his
orders have caused her mother to take her favourite story-
books away. Now, though play, if she could be got to
care for it, would be better for her than melancholy tales,
yet even sad story-books would have taken her out of
herself for a time ; and aroused within her some natural
human sympathy, to do which, in a child of her tempera-
ment, is one of the most important and one of the most
difficult problems which an educator has to solve. When
she grows up, she in her turn is considered a " strange
girL" She is a favourite with clever men, worshipped by
children and the poor, followed about by dogs and tame
birds ; but, as a rule, not much liked by the ladies of her
family and the neighbourhood ; not satisfactory or easy
to get on with; and subject to rare but violent paroxysms
of temper on apparently trifling provocation ; usually
about the supposed wrongs or grievances of some helpless
person or dumb animal.

At nineteen she has an attack of some kind of blood-
poisoning or low fever. She shows no fear of dying, and
no wish to get better. So far as she takes any interest in
anything, it is in resisting food or medicine on one pre-
tence or another. She says that she does not like the
food, and that she does not believe the medicine will do
her any good ; and yet you may possibly discover, if you
can surprise her when her consciousness is, so to speak,
off its guard, that she has a physical longing for one or
the other or both. She has never been delirious, or
shown any symptom of her mind being much affected,
except a curious distrust of every one, especially the
doctor. But at last she seems to become torpid. Her

THO UGHT-READING.

HI

little nephew, a great pet of hers, escaped from his
nurse to-day, and slipped into aunty's room, but aunty
did not even smile at him. She has been told that her
favourite brother is coming home after his three years'
absence, and that she must make haste and get well to
receive him ; but she took no notice of the news. And,
hark ! there is her lover's voice in the hall. Does she
hear it ? " JSTo ; she is quite unconscious," the nurse says.
Begging the nurse's pardon, she is nothing of the sort If
you could listen to her unspoken thoughts you might hear
something like this : " Little Willie must be very dull
without me, and yet I couldn't speak to him. I daresay
I could if I tried, but I couldn't try, somehow. I'm sure
if Tom were drowning instead of coming home, I wouldn't
lift my hand to save him. And there's Harry's voice, I
know. How odd it seems to hear his voice and not want
to go to him ! I don't care if I never see him again.
What makes me so indifferent to everything, I wonder ?
Am I dying ? I don't care. But am I prepared to die ?
I don't care. People are not saved, they say, if they die
unprepared. I ought to care. But I can't. It seems
very wicked. I ought to say some prayers. But I don't
know what to ask for. Let me see. What prayers used
I to say before I was ill ? Ah ! there was the Lord's
Prayer, I know. I'll say that. ' Our Father which art/
— what's the rest, I wonder 1 I forget. ' Our lather.'
I can't remember any more. Will God be angry with
me for not caring about my prayers ? He used to help
me to say them, I remember, when I was cross and un-
happy and didn't know what to ask for. Now He has
made me so that I can't say them. It is His business, not
mine, I don't care."

148

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

There is one thing, however, that she does care for
still. She is sinking into a half-comatose sleep, and a
coldness, like that of death, is creeping slowly up her
limbs. But she tosses out her arms at last in a sudden
fit of energy, and cries out, " Leave me now, go away and
leave me, I want to sleep." " TTe will be very quiet, my
darling, we will not disturb you, but we must stay. You
may want something," say the trembling friends, who
suppose of course that the idea of the sleep she is expect-
ing being very possibly her last on earth, has never
crossed her mind. 11 Leave me, leave me," she persists.
" I can't sleep while you are there. I should sleep so
sound if you were gone. That's all right now," she
thinks, as they retire behind a curtain, " I can die in
peace, now that I am alone. How cold I am ! How
nice it is to feel so still ! Soon I shall be down in a cool
dark grave, under that pretty old tree, and have nice
green grass growing over me, and never see any one
again."

For it is quite true that in fever-crises and other con-
ditions of extreme exhaustion, — and especially, I have
every reason to believe, at the point of death, — after a
man has become indifferent to present suffering and future
danger, to everything that has been to him through life
most dreadful or most dear ; after he has quite lost the
power of conceiving the idea or of feeling the presence of a
spiritual Deity, there often remains to him, as the one thing
to cling to, a vision of that material object which has been
most associated in his mind with the feelings of duty 1

1 When I say " duty," I mean voluntary and systematic sacrifice
of one's immediate inclination, whether to a worthy or unworthy
object. I mean that that which we have in any sense worshipped

THO UGHT-READING.

149

and of trust ; of the garment, that is to say, which God
has worn before his eyes. "Hold thou Thy cross be-
fore my dying eyes," is therefore, thank God, no vain
prayer for any one to whom Christianity has been a faith
and a passion. But this poor child has never associated
the name of Christ with anything but a set of doctrines
for the sake of which her childhood was darkened and
her youth perplexed ; and she thinks of Him now as little
as of last year's storms. Her faith and her obedience have
been given to some one Who revealed Himself to her in
the solitude of night and the beauty of nature ; and there-
fore, as she passes off into unconsciousness, she thinks of
being freed from the presence of human beings, and of the
grass and the trees and the darkness. She learned dis-
trust of mankind early ; and consequently the first
symptom of her disease was distrust of her doctor. She
longed to die in her nursery ; therefore, whenever she feels
out of sorts and ill, she does not wish to recover. And
now she has fallen asleep thinking of the blessing of
escaping from mankind, just as she thought ten years ago.
Should she ever wake on earth, it will be with a pang of
disappointment, perhaps of terror, at finding herself once
more among human friends, which will communicate a
tone of depression to her mind, and make her convales-
cence both painful and slow. Its effect will remain long
after her late-awakened human sympathies have begun

remains with us, when all which we have merely enjoyed has left
us. If Pope's fine lady, for instance, had never attended to her
toilet, except when it gave her present pleasure to do so, she would
not have had strength to ask for rouge at the last. The M ruling
passion strong in death " is a vitality lingering in the nerve which
has been touched by the spirit of self-sacrifice after all the rest of
the brain has become torpid.

150

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

once more to assert their claims. If she had fallen asleep
looking lovingly at the vision of a human figure, the sight
of human figures around her when she woke would have
given her new life.

She may recover from the fever, though very slowly.
She may also in the course of years " grow out of n. her
childish moroseness and her girlish peculiarities and fits of
passion and love of solitude, and become a happy and
useful woman. There is one thing, however, which she
will find a greater difficulty, and which, unless she learns
secrets of self-discipline known to but few, she will
hardly outgrow. Whenever she is very weak and de-
pressed, comfort and rest will present themselves to her
mind in connection with the thought of darkness, and in
some way or other of Nature, in special contradistinction
to human nature. Her reason may be convinced of her
friends' goodwill ; but whenever she is too much ex-
hausted and overtired for reason, her instinct prompts her
to trust no one except the God of Nature, Who is every-
where— in the grave (she feels) as much as anywhere else.
She distrusts, instinctively, those persons especially who
are endeavouring to do her good.

You see, of course, what spectre haunts her life. She
may become a pessimist writer or a pantheist poet, or
distinguish herself in many ways ; but at the background
of her consciousness is always some form of anti-human,
and I would almost call it suicidal mania ; not indeed the
physical craving for the act of self-murder (which is said
to be the result of inheritance from insane or drunken or
epileptic parents), but that longing to escape from human
society, that feeling that good is to be sought in dark-
ness and solitude, which produces many anomalies of

THOUGHT-READING.

character and absurdities of belief ; and which has been
known to drive the sufferer to actual self-destruction, in
spite of the most pious faith and of the greatest horror
of the act itself.

This strange disease, one phase of which I have been
trying to picture, is as Protean in its forms as scrofula ;
and in fact often blends with and complicates physical
taints of the blood, and is complicated by them.

At one time I thought that it was the product of cer-
tain specially horrible forms of religious belief ; but
further study has led me to see that this was a mistake.
No form of belief, so far as I can see, produces it ; and no
form of either faith or disbelief is a protection from it.
All my experience leads me to believe that it is the result
of lack of mutual confidence between those who have
charge of a child. The more two people differ, if they
can honestly and cordially agree to differ, the higher be-
comes, as I suggested above, their combined power of
healthily and permanently vitalising the brain of a third.
But concealed differences and unexpressed discontent be-
tween the parents or teachers almost invariably have the
effect of more or less demagnetising the thought-reading
child's brain, and putting it out of full sympathy with
humanity.

Perhaps some one may be disposed to ask how she can
judge whether a child who seems " clever " has real
intellectual power, the exercise of which will be bene-
ficial to his health, or only a power of thought-reading
which makes him appear clever because he reflects his
teacher's knowledge, and which causes very special study
of any one subject to be a danger. The following is a
simple test. Let the teacher for whose subject the child

152 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

is supposed to have a special aptitude select some point
on which the child is likely to be interested. Let her
"get herself up " on that point; i.e., prepare both her
material and herself as if she were going to lecture to a
class i and let her then invite the child to a private con-
versation on that point. The object of this is to get the
teacher into a state of magnetic tension; while at the
same time it gives the best chance of fixing the pupil's
attention. At the end of from half an hour to an hour, let
her feel the child's hand, look carefully at his face, and
ask whether he wishes the lesson to be prolonged. If the
hands are either burning or clammily cold ; if the eyes
are filmy or unnaturally bright; if the lips are twitching;
if the child either is very eager to go on, or is dazed and
tired and complains of headache, the teacher has grounds
for suspecting that any brilliancy which he may have
shown is not his own, but a reflection of her greater
knowledge. She will be confirmed in this opinion if she
has observed that the child's remarks are in any special
relation, either of agreement or of antagonism, to her own
unspoken thoughts. For it should be observed that
thought-reading often produces, if the teacher is not
exactly in harmony with the child, a revulsion of anta-
gonistic thought.

If the child's physical condition is normal, if he is only
normally interested in his lesson and quite willing to
exchange it for play, and if his answers have run in a line
independent of the teacher's thoughts, she may feel fairly
satisfied that the answers which he may have given are a
true measure of his own intellectual power. Then, by com-
paring them with the performances, not of the " clever "
children of her acquaintance, many of whom are probably

THO UGHT-READING.

*53

thought- readers, but of other children whom she has
tested in a similar way and found not to be specially
gifted with thought-reading power, she may form a judg-
ment whereabouts in the scale of real intellectual capacity
he should be placed.

I incline to think that a moderate amount of practice
in the art of positive and voluntary thought-reading, such
as may be got by playing the now fashionable " Willing
Game," would perhaps be a preservative from the suffer-
ing caused by passive and involuntary thought-reception.
But we know so little as yet of the whole subject that I
fear to give advice. I can say positively little more than
this : — that, in our ignorance of the laws which govern
the action of minds on each other, we are inflicting suf-
fering compared to which all that we are told about the
horrors of vivisection sinks into insignificance. Believe
me, no form of science is ever as cruel as wilful and self-
satisfied ignorance.

And now that serious attempts are being made to
throw light upon this obscure subject of the unconscious
influence of one human being on another, I hope that all
who have opportunities for observation will endeavour to
assist the progress of investigation.

CHAPTEE VI.
ON HOMCEOPATHY.

■■ Peace I give unto you ; not as the world giveth give I unto you.??

u The kingdom of heaven is as leaven, hid till the whole wa

leavened."

Whither we know, and whence, and dare not care where
through."'

CHAPTER VI.

OS HO MCE OP A THY.

The title of our lesson may perhaps suggest to jour
minds the recollection of some benevolent lady whom you
have met in society, who tried to persuade you that she
can, without study or reflection, cure all the ills which
flesh and spirit are heirs to, by means of a little book
and a little box full of little bottles. In order, therefore,
that we may start with a clear understanding of what the
thing is that we are talking about, I may as well assure
you at once that Homoeopathy does not mean the use of
little white pillules instep I :: :::c::ti pills. Its essentiil
feature consists in the treatment of disease by means of
remedies which are homoeopathic, in contradistinction to
such as are antipathic or allopathic, to the symptoms.
The medicine which will produce any symptom in a
healthy man, or temporarily aggravate it in one who is
already suffering from it, is homoeopathic to that
symptom. An antipathic remedy is a direct and im-
mediate pallia tive. An allopath:: remedy is age wMdh
mitigates one morbid symptom by provoking another in
some other part of the frame, A blister applied behind
the ears to relieve sore eyes is an allopathic remedy.
Lancing a carbuncle is antipathic. Putting cold limbs
near the fire is antipathic ; plunging the same cold limbs

158 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

in cold water is a homoeopathic remedy. The term
hydropathy is an absurd compound, and has no meaning
whatever. Water, hot or cold air, steam, drugs in any
form, may all be administered either homoeopathically,
antipathically, or allopathically. It ought not to be for-
gotten that Hahnemann practised successfully for some
years as a true homoeopath before the idea of infinitesimal
doses occurred to him.

Homoeopathic remedies tend to the eradication of parti-
cular morbid affections. The object of antipathic treat-
ment is to concentrate the reactive power, or to increase
it by diminishing the waste. Hahnemann's great ho-
moeopathic law or principle, " Like should be treated
by like," is now in some measure admitted by all
really scientific practitioners, however they may choose
to deride the word Homoeopathy. There are chronic
affections for which no physician worthy of the name
gives palliatives as long as he has any hope of effecting
a cure. According to homoeopaths, where the constitu-
tion is strong and some well-marked chronic disease has
to be grappled with, the doctor should prescribe a remedy
homoeopathic to the morbid symptoms ; and the patient
may be allowed to pursue his ordinary mode of life (pro-
vided that it be tolerably conformed to general hygienic
rules) ; avoiding only such articles of diet, &c, as have a
special tendency to interfere with the action of the
remedies or to increase the disease.

In ordinary eruptive1 fevers, &c, the chief danger con-
sists in the possibility of the attack not running its course,
of its being interfered with by some constitutional defect
or by injudicious treatment. The chief remedies, therefore,
1 Note 7.

ON HOMOEOPATHY.

159

are often antipathic, not indeed to the essential charac-
teristic symptoms of the disease, but to others. For
instance, if the patient is thirsty let him drink freely, if
excited darken the room. In depressed conditions give
abundance of light (of course avoiding glare) and let the
patient have something bright-coloured to look at. If
the feet are cold apply heat. But if the illness has a
characteristic eruption, of course you would never think
of trying to check that. On the contrary, if sluggish
ness of the skin prevents the scarlatina-rash from coming
out freely, you do something to stimulate perspiration.
A " pack " is in such case said by many people to answer
better than any medicinal sudorific, just because it is
more directly and purely antipathic to the dry state of the
skin, and interferes less with any other organ. Neither
pack nor sudorifics have anything to do with scarlatina.
They would not bring out scarlatina on a healthy person.
They simply correct temporarily the state of the skin
which was interfering with the rash.

There may have been, I think there must have been,
far back in the history of medicine, an epoch when every-
body supposed that the thing to do for a scarlatina
patient was to rub in, or somehow check, the rash. Try
to imagine yourselves living at such a time ; and then
think what you would have said to the first doctor who
started the theory that the way to cure the patient was
to leave the rash unchecked ; nay, even to encourage it !
Just so do we in our ignorance speak of the first dis-
coverers of many deep and vital truths.

In all the ordinary cases of chronic or semi-chronic
illness, as also in malignant fevers, severe cases of small-
pox, cholera, &c, where the disease is of too serious a

i6o THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

nature to be allowed to run its course, the doctor's busi-
ness is to prescribe remedies which he thinks will attack
the important symptoms, and which are often truly
homoeopathic ; and the nurse's business is, under his
direction, to administer treatment antipathic to accidental
symptoms.

I say under the doctor's direction. The nurse ought
to know pretty well in ordinary cases, what treatment
is antipathic to what symptom ; and, from constantly
watching the patient, she may often find out how to
relieve a symptom more quickly and pleasantly than a
doctor could But she may not know what are the
characteristic symptoms of the disease, those which it is
essential either to treat " homoeopathically " or to let alone.
They may or may not be the most obvious or most pain-
ful symptoms. Moreover, dangerous symptoms may be
present unknown to her, which her treatment might
increase or complicate by causing the symptom she is
trying to cure to fly elsewhere. And therefore, in any
serious illness, she ought to submit entirely to the doctor's
opinion as to how much of the disease she may venture
to take into her own hands at all. There is absolutely
no limit to the amount of mischief which may result
from neglect of this caution.

Uneasiness arising from natural wants is treated of
course antipathically. You do not desire to cure a man
of the tendency to become hungry or sleepy at proper
intervals, you only want to relieve his hunger or sleepi-
ness for the time. Homoeopathic treatment would, there-
fore, be out of place • unless indeed, he should be
disposed to grow hungry or sleepy oftener than is com-
patible with a healthy state of body or mind. In the

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

161

latter case the treatment must be homoeopathic. That is
to say, you will desire him to go without food or sleep
(as the case may be), a little longer each day than is quite
pleasant to him. This will have the effect of increasing
the sensation of sleepiness or the craving for food.

You will understand that I have made, and shall make,
no attempt to teach you anything of medical practice.
If you want to learn that you must study it else-
where. Whether a homoeopathic, antipathic, or allopathic
remedy is the best to use under any given circumstances,
must depend on a variety of considerations which only a
scientific medical training and long practice can enable
any one to weigh fairly. .

It is theoretically wrong to sleep with a hot bottle in
the bed except during acute illness. It tends to increase
the liability to chilliness in future. The treatment for
chronic coldness of the feet may consist, if the patient
is strong, in making him walk for a few minutes daily on
rough gravel in a brook ; if he is delicate and weakly,
you should at bed-time first get the feet thoroughly warm
by some antipathic means, and then give a shock of cold
water followed by rubbing. This is homoeopathy. But
if the shock of cold water and the rubbing fail to keep
the feet warm through the night, the patient had better by
far have a hot bottle than lie awake on account of, or
even sleep in spite of, cold feet.

If a dangerous or very painful symptom is present,
which no known or no procurable remedy will directly
attack, it may be quite right to produce a change by
allopathic means, i.e., by a blister, &c.

As we said at starting, our best plans are crossed and
checked in countless ways. And of course the circum-

L

1 62 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

stances which cross them are often much more compli-
cated than in the simple instance just mentioned, are much
too complicated for any non-professional to understand or
measure. The cases are not few in which a medical
man has to steer without a chart between the Scylla and
Charybdis of conflicting difficulties, and in which, if he
does any good at all, or even avoids doing harm, it will be
rather by virtue of some Heaven-sent instinct quickened
by long observation than because of his adherence to any
known rule. It has been said, and very wisely, that he
is no true physician who does not often prescribe some
remedy for which he could at the moment give no reason
in words, even to himself. And the more intelligently
and faithfully you perform your own work, the less in-
clined you will be to suppose that you are competent to
criticise the doctor's. I, at least, have no desire to make
you suppose it. My object in entering upon the question
of the different "pathies" has been to show you how
certain known scientific principles, which doctors of all
pathies actually recognise and upon which they do in
various ways at least endeavour to work, bear upon the
routine of our business as nurses and teachers.

Antipathic treatment, when once you have decided
that the circumstances are such as to justify its adoption
at all, is a very simple affair. You have a certain
effect to produce, and you go on gently applying the
treatment till it is produced. You need, of course, a cer-
tain amount of caution, lest the remedy be taken too
eagerly or too fast; and you should also watch lest what
was meant for the relief of an uneasy sensation should
be continued after the uneasiness is relieved for the mere
pleasure of stimulating an agreeable sensation. But, as

ON HOMOEOPATHY.

163

the amount of effect to be produced is the direct measure
of the amount of means to be used before pausing, a very-
little judgment and practice are required in order to know-
how best to adapt the means to the end. You ought not
to put a hot bottle into a sick child's bed merely to
amuse him with the sensation of tingling warmth. But
you know when his feet are cold • and you know that if
the bottle you have applied fails to warm them it is quite
safe and right to apply a hotter one. Even supposing that
a generous diet is recommended as part of the antipathic
treatment of a disease, although you do not, it is true, feed
the patient incessantly till the disease is cured, yet you
feed him at any one meal till his hunger is fully satisfied.
There is a tangible effect which you are to aim at pro-
ducing ; and you go on pouring in the remedy, gently but
without pause, till the effect is produced. All this is simple
enough. So long as all you have to do is to put an end
to symptoms by antipathic treatment, you can hardly go
far wrong except from sheer carelessness or want of
observation.

But homoeopathic treatment for the eradication of ab-
normal tendencies is a much more serious business. The
medical treatment of disease should be left as much
as possible in the hands of skilful physicians. But we
mothers have to do with the eradication of abnormal ten-
dencies by means of other than medicinal agents ; and such
as we do use must be used in accordance with the laws
of Nature, or they will fail. All our cowardly concessions
to our own and our children's evil habits come from want
of faith in the Divine law of similia similibus. All the
violent and brutal theories of education, by which
children's energies are overtaxed and the moral spring of

i64

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

their lives broken, have been set afloat by persons who
have arrived empirically at a perception of the truth of
that law without understanding the conditions and mode
of its operation.

In learning the use of homoeopathic remedies, it is
before all things necessary that you should have patience
to walk by faith and not by sight. They must be ad-
ministered in small doses, with at least a sufficient inter-
val between the doses to allow time for a full reaction
to take place. Unless the vital power is naturally very
great, it should be carefully kept at its maximum during
the time of their operation ; and occasionally a longer in-
terval should be allowed. Thus, you have a child whose
circulation is defective, and who is constantly chilly.
How will you correct this evil state of things 1 Plunge
him roughly into ice-cold water regardless of his screams ?
send him out fasting after his morning bath to creep along
for an hour as best he may, with benumbed limbs and a
more benumbed heart, through snow and wind and early
fog ? keep him half the day in a tireless room insufficiently
clad, by way of hardening him ? and punish him for tem-
per when he cries in sullen misery ? That would be
homoeopathic treatment, certainly, after a fashion ; and a
good deal of such was practised in the early days of
homoeopathy and the water-cure ; and even under the eyes
of the founders of both systems. They could not escape
the general fate of human teachers. They, as well as
others, could at times be inconsistent. They, as well as
the drugging apothecaries whom they held in such horror,
have left their mark upon the earth in the shape of tiny
graves. But if we follow the true homoeopathic prin-
ciples laid down by Hahnemann in the " Organon of

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

Medicine," our practice in the case supposed will be
rather more like this : — We shall make the little patient
understand that he can gain strength only on condition
of bearing cold \ and that his bearing it with the best
grace possible will be right in itself, and also will give
pleasure to mother, who does not like to make her darling
submit to anything unpleasant, and who never would
think of doing so were it not that she is forced to do it
by the arrangements of some one who loves him even
better than she does, besides being very much wiser and
more far-seeing. We shall take him out of bed directly
he wakes (just when he is most warm), handling him
tenderly and speaking kindly and cheerily (to bring the
re-active power to the highest possible pitch). The bath
should be just cold enough to give him a slight shock,
but not a very painful one. If possible ' 1 mother " her-
self should put him into it for the first few times, trying
to amuse him meanwhile in whatever way she thinks
most effectual. Every effort on his part to repress his
tears should be rewarded by caresses. He should be well
rubbed after his bath, sitting the while on mother's lap in
a warm room. After breakfast (not before it in winter),
at the brightest part of the day, his feet and hands
having been got thoroughly warm, he should be well
wrapped up and sent out with some pleasant companion
for just so long a time as he can walk without becoming
chilly from fatigue, and no longer. In wet, or snowy, or
very cold weather, a romp in a tireless room which has
been previously well dried and aired should be substituted
for the walk. In winter this kind of patient may as well
get no bath on Sunday, and no walk unless he really
likes to go out.

i66

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

As soon as it has become manifest to the child that to
bear cold without tears or resistance is a thing within
the compass of possibility, " mother " may leave him to
the nurse for his morning bath (provided, of course, that
the latter be a tolerably kind and intelligent person). It
is good to teach him, in all possible ways, to find the
same stimulus in the idea of doing his duty to an absent
person that he does in the caresses of one who is actually
present. Unless you do this, even caresses will lose their
power. But if on a particular day he should happen to
be unwell or fretted, mother may as well give him his
splash herself for a treat, and (the re-active power being
weakened by indisposition) no harm will be done if,
without saying anything about it, she makes the water
a little warmer than usual. In proportion as the child
gains in power of resistance, the water may be made
colder, and the walk longer, and less care need be exer-
cised in keeping him at home in bad weather.

I have gone in detail through this very simple case, not
because I had any new or valuable information to impart
to you about it, but because it affords as good an illustra-
tion as I could find of the philosophy and morale of
homoeopathy. I will now take one of a different and
more complicated kind. Let us reflect what is implied
in the relief afforded by dancing to nervous patients. In
health we are, or ought to be, during a great part of our
waking hours, sacrificing the temporary benefit which
would accrue to us from following every impulse as it
arises, for the sake of some object out of ourselves. TV"e
thereby gain a reactive power which more than compen-
sates for the temporary injury. We call this process
broadly " Work." The vital force flows to whatever part

ON HOMCEOPA THY.

167

of the body or brain is thus " worked." In sickness there
is this difference : that, as we need to apply as much vital
force as possible to the cure of the disease, we should
follow every instinct as far as we can (except those the
gratification of which would directly tend to increase the
disease). jSTow, suppose a man's instinct prompts him to
constant movement. To sit still long would be bad for
him; to move according to his own restless impulses,
which is the antipathic remedy pointed out by nature,
would be, in the long run, even worse. We take posses-
sion of him and cause him to move constantly in obedience
to a regular law imposed from without. So he gets the
physical exertion which a true instinct warns him that he
needs, without the nervous exhaustion caused by follow-
ing one's mere impulses.

Marching or drilling would be better than mere 1111-
regulated movements ; but dancing (or calisthenics to the
sound of music) is better still, because the music makes
the dancer feel a greater willingness to adapt his steps to
its pace. Next to voluntary self-surrender to a person
whom he worships, or voluntary self-denial for the sake
of creatures which he pities, there is nothing so good for
a human being as voluntary submission to a law of which
he feels the beauty.

The sense of beauty is aroused in the dancer, not by
individual steps which he executes because he sees their
beauty, but by the harmony of the whole. Even when
performing a solitary horn- pipe, still more when joining
in a figure, he is constantly sacrificing both his impulses
to move, and his notions of what movement would in
itself be graceful, to the carrying out of an ideal. He
executes at each moment not the movement which exer-

i68

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

cises the limb which happens for the moment to be most
restless, nor that which strikes him as most graceful, but
the prescribed movement as gracefully as possible. In
this consists the peculiar healthfulness of the exercise.

It may be said that, according to this, any real work
which caused the required amount of physical exertion,
and which the patient engaged in for the sake of another
person, would be better for him than dancing. So it
would, if he were well enough to keep his thoughts fixed
on one purpose without external aid. No one ever re-
commended an adult in tolerable health to spend much
time in dancing. Its chief value is found in the case of
insane persons who have lost the power of keeping a
motive of action steadily before them. The music and
the laws of the figure supply (with reverence be it spoken)
the same kind of external aids to memory which sacred
pictures, &c, do. They give a constant stimulus to the
too inactive sense of submission. They excite a willing-
ness to act by rule, and to do or bear whatever is imposed
by authority.

It might seem at first sight as if the very perfection of
treatment for a patient of diseased or weakened mind
would consist in his having about him constantly some
person for whose sake he would be willing to exert him-
self, and who would dictate to him at each moment what
to do. I believe that in reality no treatment would be
so likely to render a cure hopeless.

You cannot directly and by word of mouth issue a
command to, or make a request of, a person who loves
you, without exerting over him more or less of brain-wave
influence ; without conveying to him, that is to say, a
certain portion of vitality from yourself over and above

ON HOMEOPATHY.

169

that which would naturally come to him from the act of
trying to obey you. Now human magnetism, that is to
say, vitality which has passed through and been concen-
trated in a human body, though the most valuable and
perfect of all artificial stimulants, should only be used as
such, and with the caution and moderation which the use
of any stimulant requires. Even the constant close pre-
sence wTith you of a person whom you love may become
enervating, in the same way as constantly breathing arti-
ficially oxygenated air would be. And if he adds to the
effect by too frequent words or caresses, it becomes still
worse. Practically, therefore, dancing, if carried on in
pure air, is found to be one of the best employments for
a very weak-minded, restless patient, and one of the best
forms of recreation for one whose powers of attention and
self-guidance are becoming wearied. It does in two ways
a certain amount of good ; and it does no harm at all (I
except, of course, cases where the patient, from some
association of ideas, is over-sensitive to the effect of
music).

But here the question naturally arises : Would it be
possible to make the dance itself call into exercise the
higher emotions by some means which would not involve
the over-use of any artificial stimulant to them ?

When the question is thus stated, the answer is obvious.
The physician of the asylum ought himself to be present
and to show an interest in the proceedings. It ought to
be generally understood that it gives him pleasure to
witness correct and graceful dancing ; but he should not
take too much notice of any one patient in particular,
unless that patient happens to be particularly timid or
depressed. I am assuming that the physician possesses

§2o

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

the power of calling out the respect and affection of those
under his charge. If he does not possess that power,
whatever intellectual capacity he may have, he is unfit
for his post.

The heathens of old had discovered, you know, that
dancing made people more receptive of divine influence ;
only their knowledge was so empirical and partial that
they could make little practical use of it ; and sometimes,
indeed, like all empirical knowledge, it was misused. Our
modern heathenism has improved upon the old : some
people have found out now - a - days that the way to
make hysterical and ill-conditioned girls more receptive
of divine grace is to prevent them from dancing !

Dancing is good, not only for restless, but also for slug-
gish people, and for a different reason. The sluggish cir-
culation needs to be quickened. The torpor shows some
want of nervous power which makes exercise painful,
and therefore, for the moment, injurious. The antipathic
remedy for the pain which movement causes would be to
sit stilL But this pain (or uneasiness), on moving, is an
essential part of the disease which we want to cure. It
must, therefore, be attacked directly and homoeopathically.
We make the patient do the very thing which causes him
pain : but at the same time, by means of music and the
rhythm of the motion, we put his mind into such a state
that he does not feel the pain. It is just the same sort
of process as putting the chilly child into cold water,
while fondling and amusing him that he may feel it as
little as possible.

It may be said that the longing for constant movement
also is a part of the very disease which we want to cure
in the restless patient True, but it is not a primary or

OX HOMCEOPATHY.

dangerous part We cannot afford to meddle with it
yet. When the patient is much better we will encourage
him to sit still, but not now. TTe must treat it anti-
pathically for the present, and let him dance whenever he
likes.

In the same way, if a man is ill from the effects of ex-
cessive drinking, we give him what he likes best to eat,
although his capricious tastes are the result of disease,
and although, if he could fancy plain food, it would do
him more good than the spiced dishes which he prefers.
When he is better we will prescribe plainer food, but at
present we reserve the whole power of resistance for a
fight with the craving for alcohol which is the essential
feature of the disease. This craving, remember, is not a
mere fancy. Alcohol is a real palliative to the symptoms
from which he is suffering. The instinct which tells him
so is a true instinct. But the disease consists in his
being constantly in a state for which alcohol is the only
palliative. The true homoeopathic remedy is to withdraw
the alcohol, and so increase temporarily the suffering.

Work, properly understood, means doing that which is,
for the moment, not good or pleasant, for the sake of an
object out of ourselves. Rest, so far as it is really rest,
means doing that which is good and pleasant, that to
which our instinct prompts us, but for the sake of an
object out of ourselves. Doing what we like, simply be-
cause we like it, and with no added motive to give it zest,
that is good for neither week-day nor Sabbath. The
dancing, therefore, of a sluggish patient is the type of all
healthy labour and of all true homoeopathy ; the dancing
of a restless one is the type of all wholesome recreation,
and a clue to the best kind of sick nursing.

172

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

As long as a man is in tolerable health, both his labour
and his recreation are marked out for him by circum-
stances. But when you get him into your hands as a
patient, your business is to select for him such kinds of
each as shall most tend, not only to keep up a steady
supply of reactive power, but to direct it towards the cure
of the disease.

Perhaps you may be saying to yourselves just at this
moment, " If nothing is to come out of this long rigmarole
about dancing, except the two facts that it is good for mad
people to dance, and that it is even more good for them
to have a kind and sensible doctor, we have been going
through a great deal to learn very little ; for we knew that
much before we ever heard of homoeopathy or thought
of meddling with science of any kind." But you must not
forget that the comprehension of scientific laws is best
arrived at, in the first instance, by the serious contempla-
tion and investigation of facts already well known and
often apparently trifling ; and that the best of all practice
in scientific analysis, for beginners, consists in thoroughly
examining, with the aid of scientific formulae, questions
the answers to which have already been arrived at empiri-
cally and tested by long experience. And the more you
advance in your studies, the stronger, I believe, will the
conviction grow in you, that nothing is useless or un-
worthy of attention which helps to cultivate in us scien-
tific habits of mind, or to strengthen our faith in the
divine principle that " Man shall not live by bread alone,"
or by the gratification of his immediate wants and longings,
but by reverence for every fact of Nature and of human
experience, because every such fact is a word that " pro-
ceedeth out of the mouth of God." If we have learned

ON HOMOEOPATHY.

173

within the last half-hour nothing more than we already
knew about the effect of dancing on the insane, we have,
I hope, gained a little fresh insight into, or at least a
little practical skill in tracing in detail, the effect of em-
ployment in general on people in all states of health.
And I hope presently to convince you that the possession
of this skill is a matter of by no means slight import-
ance to those who have in their hands the charge of young
people or of the sick.

Let us reflect a little on two curious and well-known
facts. When you want a plant, such as celery for in-
stance, for food, you give it rich soil and all the means
and appliances of rapid development ; and you shelter it
from the decomposing and hardening influence of light.
If you want the poisonous extract of a plant for medi-
cinal purposes, you should select a wild specimen; and the
poorer and harder the soil in which it grew the better.
The garden plant is tender, digestible, large, and rapid in
growth, mild in flavour, deficient in medicinal virtue,
and safe to eat. The stunted wildling is indigestible,
medicinal, and poisonous. The one easily acted upon by
other organisms ; the other gifted with the power of acting
for good or evil upon other organisms.

Now you have, in education, to take at each step a choice
of evils. (So ; stay. Do you perceive how readily and
naturally we drift into pessimistic and hopeless views ?
I said " a choice of evils," when I was actually think-
ing of a choice between two modes of doing good, each
of which would have some destructive influence.) You
have at each step to take your choice between two forms
of good : Shall I now feed my plant to give it extension,
growth ; or shall I starve it to give it intensity ? Shall I

174 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

shelter it to give it repose • or let in light to brace and
harden at the cost of rapid waste of tissue ?

Our work is to strike a balance, and give the right
amount and best kind of each form of good ; as much of
each as we can ; by such methods as will involve no need-
less destruction. To waste no force, but at every step to
" forge and transform passion into power."

Everybody has observed the mischief which is some-
times done to body, mind, and soul, when a young person
is over-persuaded to adopt a profession for which he is by
nature unsuited. The inference not unfrequently drawn
is that the larger an organ the more healthy its action ;
and that children should be taught only what they have
most taste for. I do not see the soundness of this reason-
ing, nor do I believe the conclusion to be warranted by
facts.

The truth is, I believe, that a medium-sized faculty,
after it has been thoroughly trained into activity, works
more normally, and bears continuous work with less
injury to the health than a very large one. In the
extreme case of a man having inherited a strong taste
for a pursuit from a father who was very eminent in it,
the son, it is said, had better not attempt to follow it
at all, except as an occasional amusement. But, to be
healthy, the training must be voluntarily submitted to
for the sake of something out of one's self. Now, what
is called " complying with the wishes of one's friends"
in the choice of a profession, often means in reality,
allowing one's self to be tempted by the hope of
wealth, or persuaded by the fear of worry, or of
poverty, or of being thought obstinate or selfish, to
sacrifice one favourite art to one's own ease : — a pro-

ON HOMEOPATHY.

175

ceeding neither moral nor of course healthy. Whereas
when a man goes into a profession for which he has a
strong taste, he is drawn, by his very liking for it, to
give himself up to his art or science, or rather to that
divine ideal which shines through every art and science,
but which he can see best through that one. Now of
course it is*, better to worship an art than nothing.
But how often has it' happened that a man, from a
genuine desire to please his parents or to support his
family, has gone into a profession for which he had at
first no taste, shown a real genius for it, learned to
like it, made discoveries in connection with it, and
practised it till old age, free from the danger of mono-
mania, which often attends the constant indulgence of
a very strong taste.

Besides, it is not true that the profession of one's
choice always exercises exclusively or chiefly one's
strongest faculties, especially during the years of pre-
paration. There is an enormous amount of mechanical
drudgery to be gone through in the process of learning
any art or science, which is often at first as distasteful
to its votary as any occupation which could be devised.
But he soon learns not to dislike it, because he is
working for the Eachel of his love. And it does him
therefore no harm but good. The same drudgery for
the sake of anything else which he loved as much,
would have done him just as little harm and as much
good.

If you want to realise a little what is involved in
learning an art, conceive a child, fond of music, forced to
divide her time between listening to fine orchestral per-
formances and playing on a dumb piano. How do you

176

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

think she would feel during her hours of practice?
Would it not fret her far more than a dull inartistic-
natured child ? But the sound of the piano puts together
the act so distasteful and the object of delight, and
leaves them to train the child gradually into enjoyment
of a naturally unpleasant duty.

Try to do that always ; to fuse into one, duties in
themselves disagreeable and some object for the sake of
which they will be willingly done. And do not ask
your son to take up, for your sake, a profession to which
he is not inclined, till you are sure that " for your sake "
constitutes a motive sufficient. " But a son ought to be
willing to please his parents." Then give him, or find
him, some motive for the sake of which he will be willing
to do what he ought.

If a very small faculty which has been hitherto left
dormant is suddenly called into work, its action is usually
both abnormal and unhealthy. But this is a reason not
against, but for the habitual exercise of the faculties which
are weakest, during the process of education. ;

What we have been saying may seem to point to the
conclusion that the best profession for a man is the one
for which he has the least taste. But it is not so. A
man will find the greatest amount of healthy stimulus to
work in the place where he can be most useful to society.
And that I suspect will be, unless some other is clearly
marked out by special circumstances, one in which the
chief part of the daily routine is performed by organs
neither very large nor very small, while the large ones
have opportunities of coming in, as it were, to make
suggestions. Thus, a man of poetic temperament, if he
takes up any branch of exact science, is not unlikely to

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

177

make discoveries in it ; because his poetic faculty suggests
to hirn analogies, which one whose natural taste was for
mere scientific investigation would never have thought
of. He will thus be less morbid than if he had devoted
himself to poetry as a profession, and more useful to the
world, and therefore much happier and healthier than if
his occupation had afforded no scope to his ideality.

It is true that the most perfectly-balanced brain would
be one in which the amount of exercise given, through
life, to each organ should be in inverse ratio to its size.
It is also true that most of us would be the better for
having our brains more evenly balanced than they are.
But I am not sure that perfedly-halanced brains would
do as good service in the world as those which work with
a certain amount of one-sidedness and passion. The
Maker of the world seems at least to have intended that
men shall so work. But our business as educators is to
counteract beforehand, as sick-nurses to correct after-
wards, the evil effects of this one-sided work. "We ought
not to prevent its being accomplished. And I only
wished to point out to you that it is a mistake to imagine
that the use of a large organ is in itself and necessarily
more healthy than that of a small one.

The smaller a faculty the more slowly it will work
at first, until it has become active by exercise ; and I
think also the greater the expenditure of vitality caused
by using it. Irksome tasks, therefore, should be short
until the pupil has gained power by practice ; just as a
feeble limb should be exercised a little at first, and the
strain on it gently and gradually increased. But this
again is a reason, not against but for the exercise of the
weaker mental faculties at that period of life when the

M

i78

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

vitality is naturally abundant and the amount of work
got through is a matter of no consequence.

The mistake made by too many educators who believe,
on religious grounds, or from empirical observation, in the
homoeopathic doctrine that vitality is given by resistance
to adverse circumstances, is that they allow themselves to
be confused by a vague idea about the infinite life-giving
power of God ; and forget to ascertain how much of this
life-power the pupil has received, or is likely in the actual
state of his body and mind to be capable of receiving.
I do not wish to deny that God may at times have given
to a man exceptional strength for special reasons of His
own. But we have no right to reckon on His doing so
only because we are too lazy to ascertain what we ought
to expect our pupils to be able to do and to bear. Of
course, the more strain we put on the reactive force, up
to a certain limit, the more the receptivity of stomach,
lungs, and brain will increase. But there always is a
limit, which varies according to the general constitution
of the individual and to his actual state of body and
mind ; and this limit should never be overstepped, nor
even quite reached. Moreover, if you use a part of
the supply for one purpose, you must not reckon upon
having the whole at command for any other purpose.
And the more truly " homoeopathic " to the disease a
remedy is, or the more repugnant to the taste the labour
is, the more reactive force it needs and uses, and the less
it leaves to be expended in other ways. There is no good,
therefore, in subjecting a delicate girl, who eats little and
thinks much, to the action of violent cold-water treat-
ment or of large doses of drugs, or in forcing a child to
eat what it dislikes just when it is overtired or unhappy,

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

179

or in persuading a studious man to take violent muscular
exercise instead of gentle walks by way of recreation,
or in advising over-worked labourers to study Euclid in-
stead of singing or chatting in the evening ; nor is it con-
sidered good medical practice to give a medicine which is
homoeopathic to the state of one part of the constitution,
while much reactive force is being used in resisting the
aggravation caused by a medicine previously administered
which was homoeopathic to some other part. If the vital
energy has been by any chance overtaxed, the patient
should be treated, for a time, not with homoeopathic but
with antipathic remedies. Thus, rubbing with snow is
sufficient treatment for a frozen limb ; but a man who is
suffering from general exposure to cold, or chilly from
over-fatigue and hunger, needs warmth. So, whenever a
child is overtired, or ill, or suffering from a shock of grief,
it should get as much physical comfort and general in-
dulgence as can be given. So, although a little study, to
preserve the balance between body and mind, would be
good for the health of a field labourer whose hours of
labour are not too long (much better for him than athletic
sports), yet merry, unintellectual chat, or sauntering about
with his children, or contemplating the proportions of his
fatting pig with a pipe in his mouth, is a much fitter
form of recreation for one who is overworked The
greatest boon to the latter would be to provide him with
some form of amusement which would call out the moral
without taxing the intellectual faculties.

And there is another mistake which those who have
arrived at the great homoeopathic law from the theolo-
gical or moral side too frequently make. They think a
great deal of their children acquiring that vital energy

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

which comes from self-renunciation ; but they forget that
it is their business to direct it where it is most needed for
the harmonious development of body and mini You
should try so to arrange and administer discipline as to
balance the whole constitution, instead of strengthening
one part at the expense of the rest.

I have occasionally known parents who, starting from
Hahnemann's principle that the healthy life for man is
not one of intellectual luxury but of devotion to the good
of mankind, have kept their daughters from regular school
work, with a view to employing them in the household
or among the poor. The experimemt usually proves on
the whole, I believe, a failure. If a mother needs her
daughter's assistance and can make her give it regularly,
the education which she thus receives may, as many in-
stances prove, develop not only her moral but her intel-
lectual faculties better than any other which could be
devised. But if a girl is kept from school with a view
to her working for others for her own benefit, the result
commonly is that she spends her time between paroxysms
of passionate devotion to somebody or something chosen
by herself at random, self-willed schemes for doing good
in her own way, and idle dreaming ; and I need not tell
you how much better it would be for her to be compelled
regularly to give up her own will, if only in obedience to
a mechanical schoolroom routine. And then, again, in-
many families all the work which really ministers to
health is done by servants, and a girl is expected to make
herself useful, by giving up her studies for the sake of
doing things which, so far as she knows, are quite useless.
a But she ought to trust her mother's judgment in the
matter." No one ever ought to trust any one. Her

ON HOMEOPATHY.

rSi

mother ought to have made it impossible for the girl to
do anything but trust her, I suppose you mean. Theoreti-
cally she ought. But then some of us do not do all we
ought. Some of us cannot make our children trust us \
and I am trying not to amuse perfect people with specu-
lations about a perfect state of things, but to show weak
fallible erring parents, like myself, how it is sometimes
possible to make errors and difficulties and evils mutually
destructive, instead of allowing them to cumulate and
ferment together till they get beyond all mastery. If
your daughter quite trusts you, so much the better ; but
if she does not, then the best you can do is to own that
she does not, and the worst you can do is to blind your-
self to the fact that you have failed in making her trust
you.

Some portion of a school-girl's holidays ought, of
course, if possible, to be spent in ministering to the
comfort of her family. Many parents omit this alto-
gether; and that even in a rank in life in which the
elder members of the family do a considerable share of
the work of the house. They wish, they say, to make
the holidays as happy as possible. It is mistaken
kindness, and usually fails even of attaining the imme-
diate effect aimed at.

Reaction.

Few people think enough of the difference between
nervous power and nervous excitement. The latter is so
apt to produce temporarily some of the symptoms of the
former that a careless observer may easily mistake the
one for the other.

182

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Other things being equal, the more rapid and full
the pulse, the greater the receptivity for vitality through
the brain ; but then the greater also the waste through-
out the whole system, and the greater the need of a
constant fresh supply to control the brain ; and the
worse the effect of any deficiency in that supply. The
quicker, therefore, a patient's pulse is, the more watchful
you must be, first, that he does not fly off at a tangent
into some actively morbid vagary ; and secondly, that
he is not on the whole exhausted instead of strengthened
by the stimulus which quickened it.

Let us suppose, for instance, that a sick person is,
on a particular day, dull, languid, and low-spirited.
You bring in a friend to talk to him. The friend's talk
takes him out of himself, and the nerve force begins to
flow in rapidly.

Kindly thoughts, if they could have been aroused in
silence, would have made it flow in too ; but they do
so all the more rapidly, because the excitement and
exertion of talking have raised the pulse. For the
time, he seems better. But how will he be an hour
after the friend has left ? That will depend upon
whether the additional supply caused by the change of
thoughts, or the additional waste caused by the quick-
ening of the pulse, is the greater. And that again
will depend upon the state of the patient, and on the
nature of the conversation, &c. Some nurses do their
patients great harm by their constant desire to rouse
them. Others keep them weak by depriving them of
all excitement, for fear of a bug-bear which they call
" re-action," the nature of which they understand very
vaguely.

OX HOMOEOPATHY.

The word reaction is used for three different things,
which ignorant people constantly confuse together.

ist, There is the local response to a shock ; the warmth
of skin after a cold douche, &c.

2d, When the overplus energy given by a temporary
fit of earnestness about something out of one's self, is not
all used for the object which gave it, it will, if the mind
is under thorough control, remain in the nervous system
in the shape of available, healing, life-giving power. But
if the mind is not controlled, it may fly off to some-
where where it is not wanted, and produce a reaction of
ill-temper, destructiveness, or restlessness, &c. So the
wickednesses that result from revivals are attributed to
" reaction V after religious excitement.

3d, AYhen the earnestness causes a greater waste of
power than it supplies, a reaction of exhaustion and low
spirits ensues.

You must learn to distinguish these two latter kinds of
reaction, and think in each particular case which is most
to be dreaded, and which you have to guard against.
Elijah's desire to die (1 Kings xix. 4) was caused by re-
action of exhaustion after the great strain on his nerves
at the killing of the priests of Baal. Jonah's indignation
that the Xinevites were not destroyed was a clear case
of the other form of reaction.

For Elijah food, for Jonah silence and cool green shade,
is very good treatment. If a patient of mine got into
Elijah's state of mind, I would not let him lie on the bare
earth until he had taken plenty of food. And I would
surround him with cheerful friends, and perhaps venture
on a little kindly fun. And when he was alone I would
not leave laudanum in his way : not for fear he should

1 34 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

take it, but because he would be very likely to fancy he
was tempted to take it ; and then to fancy that feeling
this temptation was sinful. I would spare him every
kind of moral struggle, and allow him to have no painful
duties ; I would, till the vitality was restored, fill up his
time as much as possible with duties the doing of which
was in itself easy and pleasant. I would put Jonah, on the
contrary, somewhere where he could be alone with " the
Lord," and with professional attendants, or with friends
who would treat anything he might say as coolly as pro-
fessional attendants do, and forget it as soon as said ; for
he would be sure to say something selfish and wrong.
And as soon as he began to recover, I would try to pro-
vide him with some monotonous task rather distasteful to
himself than otherwise, but the moral obligation of which
was quite obvious, and which afforded no opportunity
for excitement, notoriety, or self-glorification. The two
histories of Elijah and Jonah well repay careful study for
any one who is interested in mental hygiene. They are
quite wonderful as specimens of minute and accurate
psychological analysis.

What are called " exceptional" people and exceptional
cases never are really exceptions ; they are typical cases
which test and prove principles. Study the question of
reaction, whenever you have the opportunity, in typical
cases, and in each individual at typical times ; by sick-
beds, or when any one about you has a fit of exceptional
excitement or depression. Everything that takes place
then is worthy of note. Watch, store up what you see.
So learn the principles which govern reactions, and then
apply them to the treatment of your children in their
ordinary health. Learn to judge by your child's face

ON HOM GEO PA THY.

185

and voice whether you are putting more strain on his
self-control than the motive you are supplying will safely
bear ; or whether you are arousing more energy and passion
than the work you are providing will safely carry off. It
will not be easy. You must find it out for yourselves,
for no one can teach you. You must learn by long prac-
tice, by patient thought, and careful study, by repeated
failures, and by bitter experience, at your own cost, and
at the cost of those who are dearest to you. I will give
you, if you like, one or two practical hints which occur to
me, but I do so almost reluctantly, as I dread above all
things leading you to imagine that I have any patent
plan for escaping from paying the price of one's own
experience.

Most people seem to think that children can hardly
spend too much time among flowers and animals, pro-
vided that they are not allowed to be guilty of actual
cruelty. I speak with diffidence against so general an
opinion ; but I must say that my experience does not
confirm it. Gardening is a good occupation for a child ;
so no doubt is tending animals, when such arrangements
can be made as impose on him any real work or restraint
in connection with them. But it is found in many cases
practically [ difficult to accomplish this. A child plays
with a caged pet, in reality for his own amusement, but
believing, and finding it pleasant to believe, that the en-
joyment is mutual, and that he is relieving the tedium
of the animal's solitude. But he will scarcely give up a
game which happens to take his fancy next day, lest his
pet should be dull without him. A little girl goes into
ecstasies over the beauty of a flower which she has
gathered. Not only are her artistic perceptions awak-

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

ened ; she personifies and almost fondles the " little dar-
ling," as she calls it. And not only so, she shelters it
from the sun and gives it water, lest it should be unhappy;
playing at believing, and indeed half believing in reality,
that it is capable of feeling. By and by, her " darling n
begins to fade, or she wants its place for some newer
treasure. So it is flung out into the dust to wither. Her
intercourse with it has consisted entirely in its being made
to minister to her pleasure ; and it has done so, in some
measure at least, by calling out emotions which ought to
have led to her sacrificing her pleasure to it. I can hardly
believe that unlimited indulgence in [this kind of senti-
mentality is good. Anything which calls out kindly
feelings gives, it is true, vitality for the time being. But
the normal way of arousing them consists in presenting to
the mind objects which require some form of serious self-
sacrifice. Continual excitement by any other means
tends, I think, to deaden the activity of the moral sense.
It is something like increasing the digestive powers by
means of stimulating food instead of exercise. Tennyson
(" Palace of Art") has painted a life of intellectual and
aesthetic sensuality, with its awful consequences. Such a
thing is possible as a life of emotional and spiritual sen-
suality ; and I believe it is more fatal to everything good
than the other. A very large number of vices and follies,
if phrenologically analysed, would be found to resolve
themselves, either partially or wholly, into devices for
procuring the sensuous pleasure derived from self-surren-
der, without the real sacrifice of one's own inclination
which is the legitimate source of that pleasure ; into
attempts — and for a time at least successful attempts — to
obtain the tokens of God's favour, as it were, on false

OX HOMCEOPATHY.

187

pretences. This is surely a fearful idea ; fearful enough,
in all conscience, if we think of Him only as the true,
pure holy God of nature ; but appalling beyond all expres-
sion if . Well, we will leave that subject ; we are

talking of science now. Think of all you have ever
learned about the danger of habitually applying to any
important organ of the body, the stomach for instance, a
false stimulus which excites it without giving it its na-
tural work to do ; and then reflect what those are doing
to children's brains who encourage them to excite in them-
selves what are called " amiable sentiments " in ways
which cost them nothing, I am inclined to think that
some of the worst examples of a refined and deliberate
cruelty, for the mere pleasure of being cruel, might be
found among persons who, being too sensitively organised
not to feel keenly the physical pleasure of benevolence,
have sought among brute friends and pets a refuge from
the necessity for self-sacrifice which any scheme for show-
ing benevolence to human creatures would more or less
have imposed upon them. The organ of benevolence has
become deadened like the stomach of a drunkard, and
refuses at last to act at all ; thus leaving those evil pas-
sions which are common to us all to rage unchecked by
any pity or mercy.

Do I then object altogether to letting children have
live pets ? Certainly not. Just as I do not object
to giving them strong soups, or custard, or sponge cake,
or any light food, occasionally, as a change from other
food, even when they are in health. And in sick-
ness, when the stomach can digest nothing else, we
find such delicacies an invaluable assistance. But I
object exceedingly to its being supposed either that a

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

capacity for drinking unlimited beef-tea affords of itself
any evidence of present or pledge of future healthi-
ness : or that any amount or kind of nourishment con-
veyed in a liquid or very light form can suffice to
keep a child in health without solid food. It is just the
same sort of mistake as thinking a child is amiable, be-
cause he is fond of pets.

Physically and morally the whole " essence of beef"
theory is bad, except during actual illness or as an
occasional luxury. The essence of beef theory is the
antipathic theory, the theory that, when a child or
patient is in a wrong or uncomfortable state, the thing
that is wanted is to get him into a right and pleasant
state as quickly as possible, and to keep constantly
putting him back into it as fast as he gets out of it,
and, so far as you can, to avoid causes which disturb the
right and pleasant state.

It includes any theory which confuses between keep-
ing down the symptoms of evil (bodily or mental), and
curing the tendency to evil ; and which fails to take
into account the need for calling out and directing the
power of resistance to adverse circumstances.

I have known wealthy and would-be scientific ladies,
who seemed to think that the whole welfare, present
and future, of their children depended on procuring for
them the lightest, tenderest, and most nourishing kinds
of food. I wish the same people would take half as
much pains to teach the little ones to masticate plain
food properly. We read in some physiological work
perhaps, that hard lumps, if swallowed, injure the
stomach ; so we think that all that is wanted is that
no unchewed lumps shall get into a child's stomach ;

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

and that the more impossible we make it for him to
have any to swallow, the better. We think ! Half
the mischief in the world is done by thinking upon
isolated facts, instead of trying to see their relation to
other facts. Mature has decreed that the saliva which
is needed to ensure perfect digestion shall be generated
by our undergoing the labour of mastication. Why
should nature have made this decree? She had some
reason for it, be sure. Do not interpose to prevent
your little ones from learning the great lesson which
their true mother is so bent on teaching them : that
the good gifts of God were never meant for idle, luxu-
rious, impatient people. Ah ! perhaps we ourselves
need her lesson as much as they do. Let us remember
that the ultimate aim of all nature's education is, and
the great object of ours therefore should be, to pro-
duce a constant, all-pervading, willing, and almost un-
conscious self-renunciation; and to put every moment
of our time and every action of our lives under the
dominion and guardianship of thoughts of reverence
and devotion. Meditate over this great principle
sometimes while you are taking your own meals ; and
then I think you cannot fail to see that if you will
make your child grind up a fair portion of bread, plain-
boiled vegetables, solid meat, and ripe raw apples,
slowly, conscientiously, and reverently, letting him see
(without much lecturing or talk) that, because they
are God's gifts, you dare not allow him to waste them
by eating them in the wrong way, it will, in the long
run, be better for his body than all our over-refined
cookery of minced-meat and potato-snow, and custards
and fruit creams ; and much better for his soul than

igo THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

sermons about how to save one's self from suffering
in some " other world." We will recur presently to
this important subject of eating slowly ; and then I
hope to show you more clearly what it has to do with
the Homoeopathic Law.

But, first, I must make a little digression by way of in-
troducing the remainder of what I have to say about it.
Every thoughtful student of Combe's Physiology must
have admired his exquisite delineation of the way in
which [Nature takes care to educate her children gradually
in self-control, by placing the physical functions under
the charge of the conscious brain, just so far as it could
be done with safety to life, and no further. Nature wants
to educate her child into a reasonable being — lord of him-
self, lord of the visible earth, lord of the senses five — and
as fast as she dares, she will do it ; but she gives him
blunt knives, and teaches him to fence with foils, before
she trusts him with edged tools ; and she puts a guard
round his nursery fire lest he should fall into it by
accident.

Is ow another equally striking proof of the determina-
tion of nature to give a moral education to her intellec-
tual children is afforded by the singular law which she has
laid down : that every mistaken attempt at civilisation
shall tend to deaden and pervert the instincts. A plant
selects the right kind of food, if within reach, by some
apparently quite involuntary principle of affinity. The
instincts of a wild beast, of a red Indian, of a healthy
infant, though more conscious than those of a plant, still
act (in many directions) with something almost approach-
ing to certainty. Or, to return to the instance which
started us off on our present track of thought, observe

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

191

the quiet enjoyment of a cow in the act of slowly grind-
ing up her food, or of a baby in leisurely sucking. The
muscular exercise, which promotes digestion, is in itself a
delight, because the instinct is in a normal condition. The
instincts of a perfectly normally-educated man would be
as true and keen as those of a wild beast ; and would take
cognizance of higher laws and a wider range of facts, and
would, therefore, be a much more constant and certain
preservative from danger. But every violation of either a
physical or a moral instinct, tends more or less, to deaden
both itself and other instincts — to deaden them, and also
to distort their action for the future ; so that at last, by
dint of close air, a sedentary, ambitious, restless life, the
indulgence in luxury and vice (i.e., the deliberate doing
for pleasure of such acts as wild beasts perform only when
and so far as instinct prompts), civilised man has reached
a pitch at which his instincts no longer suffice to warn
him from the grossest errors ; and almost his whole life
must be one of voluntary and regularised submission to
hygienic laws, or he will be constantly injuring and in
danger of destroying himself. But if he will patiently
submit to hygienic and moral laws, he may gradually re-
cover the lost instincts in the course of generations; and, as
experience shows, to a great degree even within the life of
one individual. But they can never be recovered except
by submitting to what constitutes in itself a severe moral
discipline. If the restless impatient child, whom deli-
cacy of the stomach makes nervous and irritable, will sub-
mit to the necessity for eating slowly, he may bring -his
stomach and nerves back into a condition in which it
comes almost as natural to him to eat slowly as to a cow.
But the process of eating slowly before he has returned

192

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

to that condition constitutes a discipline in perseverance
and submission — a discipline more or less high and valu-
able in proportion as his mother deals with the subject
more or less wisely ; but still always a discipline. Now,
the process of chewing is not education at all (in that
sense at least) to a cow or a healthy savage.

You will observe that the fact of eating slowly (which
is as truly homoeopathic to a state of restless irritability
as cold water is to a state of cold), though it momentarily
increases the symptom, the mere sensation of restlessness,
has no tendency whatever to increase either the wrong
state of brain which causes the restlessness, or the stomach-
disturbance which probably accompanies, and perhaps
causes, the wrong state of brain. It does not increase
them in the child who is already ill ; and if a healthy
child is taught from babyhood to eat slowly, his doing
so will in no way tend, directly or indirectly, to produce
a chronic state of restlessness, but rather to prevent it.
This is a point on which Hahnemann insists strongly.
The homoeopathic aggravation (so-called) is not an aggra-
vation of the disease from which the patient is already
suffering. It is, he considers, an artificially induced
attack of a different disease, characterised by many of
the same symptoms. I want you to notice this ; because
it is often said, by way of an explanation of the word
1 homoeopathy : ' " The homoeopathic system is founded
on a belief or theory that the medicine which will give
you a disease if you are free from it, will cure you if you
have it ; " and many people have been repelled by the
seeming absurdity of the idea. Now I do not wish
to interfere about what doctor you should consult, or
whether you should give your child pillules or pills ; but

ON HOMEOPATHY.

193

I Jo wish to encourage you to pick up hints wherever
you can ; and I assure you that good homoeopathic doctors
and Hahnemann's book will make many things clear to
you about which it is just as well that you should be
clear. The common contemptuous definition of homoeo-
pathy, quoted above, is very far from being a correct
statement of either the theory of Hahnemann or the
practice of his followers. It is, I think, more true to say
that the homoeopathic remedy is the natural remedy ;
and, if taken in time, might have prevented the disease
from appearing. Belladonna, for instance, is considered
the homoeopathic specific for scarlatina. In other words,
belladonna usually at first aggravates, and then relieves
the symptoms of scarlatina. Now belladonna, when taken
by a healthy man, often causes temporarily symptoms
resembling some symptoms of scarlatina ; but it has no
tendency to give scarlatina itself, or to increase the
liability to catch it. On the contrary, doctors of all
pathies occasionally give it as a preservative to those
who are in danger from the scarlatina miasm. It is like
a sort of " vaccination " with another illness, just enough
like the one you fear to keep that one off.

The homoeopathic, or natural remedy, then, is a remedy
which has the power of producing temporarily symptoms
resembling those of the disease So said Hahnemann,
But in some cases it seems to me that the homceopathic-
ness of the remedy to the symptoms of a chronic disease
is due to a turn in the tide of the symptoms themselves,
which turn constitutes the disease. A child is in an un-
healthily hot room. He feels an unpleasant sensation of
heat. His feeling this is no symptom of disease. We do
not want to cure him of the instinct to feel uncomfortable

N

194

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

in too high a temperature. We ought to treat the symp-
tom antipathically, i.e.9 by (slowly) cooling the room.
But suppose the room is not cooled ; suppose the child
goes on living in hot rooms until his health becomes seri-
ously affected ; then, whatever be the form of his disease
(which will depend upon his constitution and other cir-
cumstances), one of its chief characteristic symptoms will
be a tendency to chilliness. He will suffer from the least
exposure to cold. An important part of the treatment
will consist in judicious applications of cold. The same
remedy, essentially, is needed now which was needed
before ; only that, whereas it was at first antipathic, it has
now become homoeopathic to the symptoms ; or rather, the
symptoms have become homoeopathic to the remedy. If
applied at first, the remedy need only have been given
slowly but steadily till the child was cool. Now it must
be applied with scientific precautions, in slight, short, re-
peated shocks, with sufficient intervals between for full
reaction. Homoeopathy would seem, in this and many
similar instances, to be, not science prescribing a new
remedy rendered necessary by a state of disease, a remedy
which was not wanted till the disease set in, but rather
science supplying the place of a lost instinct ; and pre-
scribing and directing a regularised use of the remedy
.which the instinct called for, till it was tired of calling
in vain. The physical constitution itself knew what it
wanted, and called for it ; until at last, finding that no
answer came to its appeals, it decided to rebel no longer,
but adapt itself to, and make itself as comfortable as it
could under unnatural and uncongenial circumstances.
And now, when the very remedy which it needs, and for
which it used to crave, is brought, the perverted instinct

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

195

shrinks and protests, and must be controlled by the orders
of a scientific healer.

A child is hot. You oblige him by cooling the room.
~No harm is done if you manage wisely ; possibly some
trifling good in the shape of a lesson to him in courtesy
and obligingness. But what I have seen gained by the
need there has been to restore, by long and patient control
and care, the power of enduring cold which had been lost
(owing to adverse circumstances), no words could describe.
Do not fancy you need plan your children's education ;
4 'accident" will provide you with abundant opportunities,
if you will only take advantage of them, for doing every-
thing that needs to be done. Learn to make " Satan cast
out Satan," to take advantage of one evil to cure another
along with itself ; that^ and that alone, is true homoeo-
pathy.

And here we see, I think, the great homoeopathic law
at its origin ; we catch a glimpse of its moral cause, its
raison d'etre. We begin to get an idea — the faintest
possible idea perhaps, but still true so far as it goes — of
what it has to say to us from God. As long as, and in
so far as, your condition is a healthy one, the way to keep
it so is to follow your instincts. Do,< as soon and as far
as you conveniently can, just what is pleasant to you.
Do nothing — or very rarely do anything — deliberately and
consciously for the sake of pleasure ; but eat when you
are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, lie down when
you are tired, put an end to unpleasant sensations of all
kinds by antipathic, that is by direct and obvious means.
And when circumstances make it, as they constantly will
make it, necessary for you to delay this antipathic treat-
ment (either for the sake of work in which you are inte-

196

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rested, or for some other motive for which you are will-
ing to sacrifice your comfort), you will be repaid by a
heightening of the instinct, by increased pleasure in
gratifying it, and, above all, by the increased strength and
energy which will be the reward of a moderate amount of
disturbance of the equilibrium ; and by the consequently
increased amount of disturbance against which you will
be able to react. But when once the equilibrium has
been disturbed beyond the point which, at the time, the
constitution is able to bear, disease (more or less) sets in ;
the instinct becomes perverted; the natural powers of
restoration and self-guidance are disturbed or extinguished;
and the treatment must now be homoeopathic. You
must do, not what gratifies the now perverted instinct,
but what, by chafing against it, momentarily adds to the
suffering. Nothing could be more fretting to an irritable
child who had been allowed to acquire the habit of gob-
bling down his food, than his first attempts to eat slowly.
But his mother's business is to see that he does eat slowly,
and also to arouse some emotion or thought the while, which
will, as far as possible, prevent his feeling the irritation.
Nothing could be more depressing to a chilly child than a
cold bath. But his mother's business is to see that he
gets his cold bath, — as cold, that is, as the doctor
wishes, — and also to put him into a mental state in
which he will not be really depressed by it.

As to how this is to be done in detail, you must
find out for yourself. A medical friend of mine had a
little patient whose nurse declared that it was impos-
sible to put him into water at the temperature ordered,
without a fit of crying and a good deal of consequent
depression and chilliness. It seemed impossible to

ON HOMCEOPA THY.

197

obtain a healthy reaction. The doctor at last went
into the child's bed-room one morning, taking with
him, as a present, a bird in a cage. He put a pan of
water into the cage ; and, to the child's delight, the
bird began to splash. " Now, my dear," said the
doctor, "let me see you do the same." The child
sprang into his bath, and splashed himself over, and
came out happy and Warm. Of course the desire to
imitate his new pet and to please his kind friend
would soon wear out. It would be the mother's busi-
ness to produce permanently an effect similar to that
which the doctor had temporarily set up. When I
have to make a chilly child take a bath, I sometimes
arrange to let the nurse give it in the mother's room ;
and then have the child put into the mother's arms
in bed, for one of those private talks which children
so delight in, immediately after it. The prospect of it
gives him something to think of during the bath ; the
warmth prevents a chill; and the mother's magnetism
restores the vitality.

But, as I have said before, I want to teach you not
plans, but principles which will enable you to form
plans for yourselves and to take advantage of any
opportunities which come in your way.

And now that we have caught a glimpse (as I said)
of homoeopathy at its source, we begin to see clearly
that it does not mean, as so many people used to
fancy, the substitution of little pillules of sugar or
starch for discipline, and self-restraint, and moral effort.
On the contrary, Hahnemann's perpetual warning (to
those few of his pupils or patients who cared to under-
stand his principles and were not merely bent on

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

learning his plans) was : It is not given to me to create
reactive healing power within yon. My province is to
direct it for you towards the expulsion of that par-
ticular taint in your blood which (among other effects)
causes yon to feel the unnatural impulse to do what is
bad for you. But the healing power itself is from God :
and you can never obtain a full supply of it except
on condition of struggling, against your unnatural im-
pulses, to keep the laws of God and live for the good
of mankind.

Neither did Hahnemann ever imagine that when the
disease was cured and the instincts restored to a healthy
state, the struggle of life was to be at an end. His whole
life proves it. (His own meals have been described as
being almost like religious services. ) No men who ever
lived have been more misunderstood than he and the
Combes have been in this respect. Neither of them ever
believed — no earnest man ever believed — what many
people suppose to be the sum and substance of their whole
teaching : that a man's life consists in his being placed
under suitable sanitary conditions and getting the right
treatment from the outside. On the contrary, they em-
phatically inculcated the observance of sanitary laws as
voluntary homage and obedience to the Author of them.
And their constant warning is : " Struggle you must against
something, or you will sink, in spite of the finest original
constitution, in spite of all that doctors can do for you.
When you are cured, your natural instinct will lead you
to do what is good for your health. Then you shall
struggle against the evils of the world around you,
struggle to save your brethren, struggle to do the work
of your Heavenly Father. But do not fancy that, because

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

199

you are now too ill for this, you are therefore to lie pas-
sive in our hands till we cure you. Do not fancy you
can be exempted for a day from the need for taking your
part in the great battle of life against death, of voluntary
obedience to God against the tendency to drift towards
corruption. At your weakest, at your maddest, at your
worst, fight against the evil that is in you ; for on that
condition only, if at all,- will God allow us fully to restore
to you the power of fighting for Him against the evil
which is around you."

No ; I am wrong ; I should not have said their constant
warning. For they, like others, had their hours of faith-
lessness, of confusion, of weakness. They said things and
wrote things which any disciple at all capable of under-
standing them must see to be contradictions of their own
principles. They did things which, no doubt, they re-
membered with great sorrow. They gave advice which-
you and I would know better than to follow. We see
things in bright light over which they had to fumble in
darkness ; and greater works than theirs, no doubt, some
of us, in this wise age, will be able to do. But do not let
us fancy therefore that we are better or wiser than they, or
walking closer with God, or with Nature. Not so. It is
in answer to their prayers that God is letting us do just
the very things which they so longed to get done : in
answer to their prayers ; and because they tried to live
unselfish, holy lives ; because they suffered reproach and
possessed their souls in patience ; because they forgave as
they hoped to be forgiven ; and because they have gone
to the Father, to do Whose will and to accomplish Whose
work they knew was food for both body and brain.

Instead of going further into the theory of homoeopathy,

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THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

I will give you the finest instance of it in practice that ever
came under my personal notice. I had broken down in
health under long-continued pressure of grief, anxiety,
and worry ; and an accidental shock precipitated a serious
attack of illness. Of course, all the doctors who were
consulted said that I was to be spared all pain and worry,
and to have my strength kept up by every possible means.
All but one, I make no doubt, would have tried to carry
out their own prescription by sparing me any contact with
persons and things whom I disliked to see. One, how-
ever, had deeply studied the theory of homoeopathy,
though, not believing in infinitesimal doses, he had never
chosen to call himself a homoeopathist. This doctor took
the kindest pains to spare me all real worry and anxiety ;
but early in my illness he informed me that it was
his intention to bring into my bedroom a friend whom
I much dreaded seeing, because of his being accidentally
connected with the cause of the shock I had received. I
begged to be spared this trial till I was stronger ; but the
doctor said that yielding to these fancies, born of mere
association, was cowardly, and tended to fix them in one's
mind ; that the true cure was to face them boldly during
the illness itself ; and that I should be better if I would
see my friend immediately. As soon as I began to re-
cover I was advised to employ my convalescence in trying
to conquer various nervous dislikes to certain articles of
diet, and other things ; and found the occupation more
restful and strengthening just then than any other which
could have been chosen for me. I had had for years a
great dislike to the sight of waves, owing to having been
once washed off from a rock and stunned by the force
with which I was flung up again. As soon, therefore, as

ON HOMCEOPA TH Y.

201

I was able to travel, I went to the seaside with no com-
panion but a little child, and spent at first a few moments
each day, which gradually increased to hours, in watch-
ing both the inrolling tide and the little one's delight at
the sight. I think nothing could have restored appetite
and strength so much as this mental homoeopathy.

I spoke just now of certain would-be scientific ladies
who fancy that the welfare of their children depends on
their being fed with the most nourishing and digestible
food. The same mistake is current in another form, more
refined and spiritual-seeming, but I think deadlier. Many
mothers advocate the doctrine that the main secret of
education consists in surrounding children from infancy
with all such advantages as may favour their physical,
intellectual, aesthetic, and moral development. So far as I
have seen of the results of this plan, it ends in failure ;
and no wonder, for it begins in blasphemy. If that were
the way to make people good, the Creator of this
world has taken a great deal of pains to keep it bad.
Surely it is enough for us to be " co-workers in His high
design;". we need not to try to improve upon it. Our
business, let us understand it clearly, is not to prevent
our children from ever experiencing a want, or making a
mistake, or doing a wrong thing ; either now while they
are under our care, or by-and-by when they have left us,
or we them. God forbid that it should be so. I say it
seriously, and thinking of my baby's sunny curls. God
forbid that we should be allowed to save our children
from nature's universal regimen. We have nobler work
than that appointed for us if we will only do it. Our
business is to economise their suffering, to see that it be
not wasted. ' Economy ' means, not shrinking, by mere

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

impulse and habit, from all presently-avoidable expendi-
ture : but such a " law or order in the house n as shall
cause each item of expenditure to bring an adequate
return of some kind Our business is to educate children
so that every pang which they endure and every need
which they feel shall make them grow stronger to bear
and do the will of God, more and not less like what He
means them to be ; and to] prepare them for carrying on
the same education for themselves and others when we
are in our graves. That is our work in life : we shall do
little enough of it, at best ; let us at least not allow our-
selves to be diverted from it by aiming at something
which is quite inconsistent with it, and which moreover
God, the God of Xature and of facts, has decreed that
we shall not accomplish. Good to surround your child
with luxury ? Think what that implies. How many
mothers in a million could surround their children with
luxury, even if all the resources of our planet were well
applied and carefully directed to that one end? Of
course I do not mean that all children should have the
same education or the same rough fare, or be subjected
to equal exposure to cold. The normal and true condi-
tion of a child depends much on the amount of refine-
ment and culture of his parents ; what is luxury to one
child is privation to another. But the law is the same
for all, though its applications are various. In an ideally
well-regulated State, the resources, physical and intel-
lectual, would be distributed, not equally, but in fair
proportion to the needs of different constitutions. But
that it could be really good for any individual to have
provided for him, in fullest perfection, all that variety of
educational appliances any one of which would be good

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

203

in itself, I cannot believe ; and, as a matter of fact, do
we find that it is so ? What children are physically so
weakly as those who are over-fed with too easily digest-
ible food ? What men are so mentally weak as those
who have been taught great varieties of subjects in a
way which spares them all the exertion of finding out
anything for themselves ?

If ever you should' be tempted to imagine that you
could do your children any good by exempting them
from the wholesome discipline which nature intended
for humanity, you could hardly study anything more
instructive than the following account of what happens
to any cell or atom of an organic body when once the
controlling force has become so weak as to leave it free
from the attrition which nature intended for it. It
occurs in a lecture by Professor Owen on Entozoa (or
internal parasitic animals) : —

" The primitive forms of all tissues are free cells
which grow by imbibition. . . . The tissues result
from transformations of these cells. . . . They are micro-
scopical indeed, and, under natural and healthy condi-
tions, are metamorphosed into cartilage, bone, nerve,
muscular fibre, &c. When, instead of such change, the
organic cells grow to dimensions which make them
recognisable to the naked eye, such development of
acephalocysts, as they are then called, is commonly
connected with a lowering of the controlling vital
energies, which, at some of the weaker points of the
frame, seem unable to direct the metamorphosis of the
cells along the right road to the tissues they were
destined to form, but permits them to retain, as it
were, their embryo condition, and to grow, by the

204

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

imbibition of the surrounding fluid, and thus become
the means of injuriously affecting or destroying the
tissues which they should have supported or repaired.'7
The lecturer then goes on to describe how certain
Entozoa are often found to develop within these over-
grown cells.

The atom tends, of course, by the very law of its
being, not to remain an atom. And if, instead of
being compressed and repressed, and forced to submit
to the social law of sacrifice, it is allowed to go its
own way (that way, remember, being one which
appears particularly favourable to its own healthy
development), then it will not submit to become a
mere particle of bone, or muscle, or cartilage, or what-
ever may happen to be wanted; but sets up an inde-
pendent existence of its own, and grows and thrives
at the expense of the community. And therefore it
remains embryonic and unformed; and, therefore, very
often, it is taken possession of, and inhabited, and de-
voured, by a parasite !

The story teaches its own lesson, and needs no com-
ment of mine. And that lesson has seldom received
a more striking confirmation than the history of
" homoeopathy " itself affords. The mistake of all the
early homoeopathists was that they thought their
science could stand alone. In their eyes all treatment
by means of common drugs was clumsy; all allopathy
was an atrocity ; all palliation of suffering was cow-
ardice; the study of physiology was useless; anatomy
was a relic of barbarism; the pursuit of art wTas waste
of time ; poetry was all delusion ; theology was an
irreverent farce. Man was put into this world to study

ON HOMEOPATHY.

205

homoeopathy, and administer medicines on homoeo-
pathic principles, and for no other purpose whatever.
So they seemed to think. Homoeopathy was the truth,
and the whole truth ; and if people cared for any
other form of truth, it must be because their brains
were in a morbid condition, and for want of having
swallowed pillules enough to restore them to a state
of sanity, and read homoeopathic books enough to give
them a healthy interest in life. They did not exactly
say so, but it was the impression which one gathered
from their conversation. And yet how humble and
unselfish these very same men could be where only
their own interests were concerned ! How willingly,
how joyfully some of them sacrificed worldly prospects
and fame, and risked their health, for the sake of
doing good to the lowest of mankind ! How tenderly,
and with what genial grace of manner, I have seen
some of them perform the most menial offices for their
patients, and especially for the suffering poor ; all
glowing, the while, with delight and pride at being
privileged to help in the work of Mon Bon Dteu.

But they could not be humble for the science which
they loved. Homoeopathy was true; and God had
committed it into their hands to teach and to cherish.
It was to deliver the world ; they could not trust the
God whom it shadowed forth to take care of it, and
of the world as well. It had saved them, and thousands
of others by their means ; surely no salvation was pos-
sible without its help. Its revelations to them were
infinite ; it could not be, after all, a mere fragment of
truth. They were willing to serve the lowest, but then
It must be Lord of all. It could not, must not, should

200

THE MESSAGE OF SCIEXCE.

not take its place as a mere atom in the great body
of truth ; it must set up an independent existence of
its own ; and destroy, and swallow, and starve out
that which God had meant it to support and sup-
plement.

And alas ! what is it now I A weak, anomalous,
amorphous nondescript, half-devoured by the parasite of
quackery, which is growing and thriving at its expense.
Would to God that the great body of human knowledge
were suffering at no other point from that disease ! It is
infested with acephalocysts in all its limbs and organs,
because the " controlling vital energy " is lowered.

I have often heard the advice given, <; Make children's
work light, and make them get through a good deal of it.
Make their lessons easy and clear, and take care to smooth
away all avoidable difficulties ; then they can learn so
many more subjects. Let them feel the stimulus of suc-
cess. Xever ^ive them anvthinsr to do which they will
not be able thoroughly to master. Nothing is so depress-
ing as failure/'

There is an element of truth in this, but I think it
contains also an error of the same sort as the one I
pointed out just now. Failure is depressing to the weak
(and are any of us strong ]) Failure is depressing ; and
so was our chilly child's cold bath. The question is :
Shall we shield the child from the depressing influence 1
or shall we gradually and gently accustom him to it while
we are there to kiss away his tears ; and teach him to find
motives which will enable him to bear it unaided when
we are no longer there ? Miss Martineau observes that the
business of a maid-of -all-work in a lodging-house is one of
the most unhealthy possible. She attributes this, not

ON HOMCEOPA THY.

only, nor I believe chiefly, to the amount of work done ;
but to the fact that the girl never can do her work
thoroughly, and therefore can have no ideal before her
which she can aim at realising. Miss Martineau is quite
right, so far as she goes ; but she has only got hold of
half a truth. Maids-of-all-work, just like every one else,
ought to be taught from their infancy to accept failure
beforehand as a part of God's wise ordinances, and to
keep an ideal before them still, no matter how often or
how grievously they may fail. Try to keep before your
own mind and your children's an ideal so far ahead that
you will never exactly expect to succeed, and will never
be disappointed when you do not succeed. This saves
many evils : the dislocation which comes from unsettled
aims ; the Chinese stuntedness which comes of too settled
plans ; and worst of all, that hideous acephalocyst-like
failure which to the individual himself and his neighbours
looks like continued success. Also it seems to eliminate
the need for, the sense of, fault-finding. It ought to be
understood that we are not supposed to be aiming at any
approachable standard, but to be trying to copy an un-
attainable ideal. A sense of guilt is one of the things
that Christ is always said to save us from. This ideal
far ahead is the condition for " growing in grace," of form,
of intellect, of soul. Aiming at results immediately
realisable, with a view of being satisfied with them when
attained, is destructive to grace of all kinds.

There is an old music-book for beginners, " Chaulieu's
Methode de Piano," in which occurs a passage which
seems to me very significant. He gives a page or two
of mechanical exercises, which may be practised day
after day for an indefinite length of time. But at the head

208

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

of the first page of tunes he places these words : " Aus-
sitot que Televe joue couramment un numero, il faut passer
au suivant, sans retour; ce moyen empeche l'eleve de
routiner." 1 The man who wrote this was no preacher of
doctrines, religious or otherwise. He had no theory to
support and no party to serve. He was evidently a close
and loving observer of children, and desirous of making
their path as easy to themselves as possible. He set
himself to solve the problem of the art of training, and
this is his solution : Constant failure is the condition of
education. Not failure acquiesced in passively ; not the
idle " I know I shall not succeed, and therefore I will
not heartily try ; " nor the proudly ascetic, " I am not
intended to succeed, therefore it would be more pious not
to try at all ; " no, but the straining of every nerve after
an object which you know you will never — or only mo-
mentarily at best — attain fully. Play this one tune as
well as you can, because it is the one given to you ; put
your heart and mind into it, as if the learning to play it
perfectly were the sole object of your existence ; but be
sure that, as soon as you can play it perfectly, your All-
wise Teacher will put you to some other task, " pour vous
empecher de routiner. " You may go on repeating humdrum
exercises from one year's end to the other ; the drudgery
is of itself one kind of discipline. But anything which
seems to you worth doing you will never be allowed to do
long; " pour vous empecher de routiner." Has not our
Father been training us so ? Are not those very failures

i u As soon as the pupil can play a tune quite easily, let him leave
it and learn the next ; this method will prevent his growing mecha-
nical and stupid." " Routine " is the French equivalent for what
in English we call " Red-tapeism."

ON HOMCEOPA THY.

209

of ours with our duties which we so deplore an instance
of it?

" What a terribly sad view of life ! " do I hear some of
you exclaim ? Terrible, is it ? Into what then were we
baptized ? Terrible ? There was once a man called Abra-
ham, through whose seed all the nations were to be blessed,
because he had faith, and followed into unknown regions
the leading of the same ' Spirit whom he had found near
to him in the country with which he was acquainted ; and
especially because he was willing to sacrifice his son, if,
and in so far as, God chose. " Yes," you say, " we must
accept it, sad as it seems, for ourselves ; for it is the
truth, no doubt ; and we will try to remember it, and
guide our own thoughts and actions by it. But you
surely do not mean that we should put all these melan-
choly ideas into children's minds." I would suffer the
little ones to come to the truth as fast as it attracts or
circumstances seem to lead them towards it ; and when
they do come in contact with it, I would encourage them
to look it straight in the face.

"But if we let them hear all these stern truths, it
would quench all love for God in their hearts, and teach
them to think of Him only as a dread power, or perhaps
to hate Him." Would it indeed ? We are women, and
some of us wives and mothers ; and don't know yet on
what food love thrives best ?

" The love that grows up like a flower, by sunshine fed,
May wither when cold winter comes, till it is dead ;
But mine grew up 'mid gloom and woe ; and storms have been
Its only nourishment ; and lo ! 'tis evergreen."

Ah ! you do not need to be told all this for yourselves.
You know it well enough ; only . . .

o

2IO

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

Only you feel so much more tender pity for Tommy
than our Father does for you, that you cannot accept our
Father's teaching for him, though you have no objection
to submit to it for yourselves. Is that it ?

I often think it would do some of us good to stand up,
of a Sunday morning, in church, and say, " I donH believe
in God." If we began in that straightforward wholesome
fashion, perhaps by the time our hair was grey we might
begin truly to believe a little. If ever you discover that
your child hates God, lay the blame on your own (or some
one's) capricious and false, and therefore cruel theories ;
and not on God's training, however stern, or nature's laws,
however inflexible.

Failure, as I said before, must not be accepted passively,
but taken as a part in God's education of us. We should
always endeavour to see why we failed.

It is commonly remarked that the children of very
good, and especially of pious people, often turn out rather
exceptionally wicked ; whereas " worldly " people's chil-
dren, even if not visibly religious, not unf requently become,
as life advances, large-hearted, generous, and devoted.
Let us see if we can find any cause for this ; and first let
us read an extract from Combe's " Physiology " about the
effect of repeated action in forming habits of brain as
well as of limb : — " The moral sentiments," he says, " in
common with the intellect, are dependent on the organism
for their means of activity during life, and hence are
more successfully cultivated by being habitually em-
ployed in regulating the everyday affairs of life than by
waiting for great occasions on which they may be exer-
cised with unusual vigour. The faculties necessary for
the practice of drawing or music .... by incessant

ON HOMCEOPATHY.

211

exercise are brought into such a state of activity as ever
after to enable their possessors to derive delight from
their exercise where the talents are possessed in any-
considerable degree. And what might we not expect
from the systematic training of the higher sentiments on
a similar plan ? "

" "Where the talents are possessed in any considerable
degree : " there hardly ever existed a creature wearing
the human form that did not possess some one or more
of the ' religious and moral ' faculties in a considerable
degree ; that is to say, who had not a strong instinct to
sacrifice his own immediate impulses to something or
other. Therefore, never take the trouble to sigh over the
fact that your child is badly organised, for few children
are altogether badly organised ; but find out by which of
his faculties you can get hold of him to save him from
himself.

Combe also shows that you need not only to train
separate organs into activity, but to train to act together
in childhood those which it is requisite should act to-
gether in later life.

Now you would never train a child to write well by
starting with a superstitious terror of bad writing. What
you do, what you must do, is to start on the assumption
that the child will write badly at first, You expect, you
allow, not only that he should fill his first copybook with
pot-hooks and hangers, but that he should make a certain
quantity of bad, crooked, distorted pot-hooks. If you hold
his hand so that he shall always write well, or terrify
him so that he dares not write at all except over a tracing,
he will never learn to write. And I think this points out
the cause, or rather the principle underlying all the causes,

212

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

which are no doubt many, why religious education is on
the whole so palpable a failure. Eeligious and good
people have a horror of sin, by which they of course
mean rebellion against the will of God ; therefore they get
a dread, a sheer superstitious, nonsensical terror often, of
such acts as in them would be " sinful" acts (i.e., acts
of rebellion), and a mania for seeing their children do acts
which in themselves would be "good" (i.e., acts of sub-
mission and devotion) ; so they devise all sorts of plans
for keeping their children from " sin * and making them
" good," quite omitting to notice whether such plans con-
stitute anything like training. Many people suppose that
the fact of a child being " good " is in itself a proof of
his being in a right moral state. It seems to me that
you might as well suppose the fact of his being up a tree
to be a proof that he is in a strong physical state ; the
question is, How did he get there ? You do not educate a
child physically by putting him every day at the top of
a pole, but by causing him to go through the process of
putting himself there, or as near there as he can get. If
he is young and weak, it may be right to give him some
assistance \ but the training consists essentially not in the
fact that he arrives at the top, but in the process which
he goes through. And he gets more training by every
day climbing a foot unaided, or insufficiently aided, or
even by making every day an unsuccessful attempt to
climb a foot, than by being carried or dragged to the
top. Failure is the condition of education, remember.
Fail we shall and must somehow, for God knows His busi-
ness as a teacher, whether we know ours or not. Fail
we must. The only choice that is allowed us is : Shall
we accept beforehand visible failure, apparent aggrava-

ON HOMCEOPA TH Y.

213

tion of the evil we are trying to cure ; or shall we insist
on getting at once some visibly satisfactory results, and
so secure for ourselves that worst of all failures which
shows itself as immediate success ?

There was nothing that Hahnemann more earnestly
endeavoured to impress on his friends than that the
vis medicatrix naturce, the healing force of nature, is
at each moment a fresh gift from a living personal
Deity, and that every true thought is a fresh inspira-
tion from Him. This peculiarity of his seems the
more remarkable, inasmuch as his belief in, and insis-
tance on, the absolute lawfulness of nature, the utter
fatal mechanicalness of the action of all her forces,
have led some people to accuse him of materialism. It
seems almost like a contradiction that the same man
should have preached both doctrines. But if you will
try to put his scientific principles into practice, you will
soon begin to understand why the grand old sage so
constantly kept those who would listen to him in mind
of their Unseen Helper. A mere atheistic belief in the
laws of cause and effect is a sufficient foundation for a
system of attempts to stop back the symptoms of evil,
or to divert it, by counter-attraction or by force, into
new channels. But the courageous patience which is
needed, to do a little, and to do it resolutely and with all
your might, even when it irritates and pains and seems
to aggravate the very evil you are trying to cure, and
then to wait while you see much needing to be done,
can hardly spring from anything except faith in a God
who is Himself the Healer and whose fixed purpose is
to heal.

I have heard mothers give, as the one only and suffi-

214

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

cient reason for taking to homoeopathy, that it " saves
trouble," because "it is so much easier to make children
take the so-called homoeopathic preparations of medicine " !
Some people add that "if you get hold of the wrong one,
it can do no harm " !

Homoeopathy saves trouble ! Does it so ? If our
lesson to-day has taught us nothing else, it has, I hope,
convinced us at least that homoeopathy is no holiday
fancy-work for idle fine ladies to play at, no unscientific
piece of quackery to be taken up by men whose intellect
is below the level of the ordinary medical routine. It
and brain-pathology constitute, together, the most diffi-
cult of all sciences, the science of the Gospel. It is a
science which perhaps no man will ever master entirely,
but it is one which, thank God, every human being who
is in earnest in his or her own work can more or less help
forward.

One of Hahnemann's most intimate friends was a
German prince whom people who considered themselves
Christians thought it pious to call an " Infidel." The old
doctor once reproached this friend for not more actively
supporting the cause of medical reform. " My dear
doctor," said the prince, "I believe in you; but you
will be the last true homoeopath, as Jesus was the last
true Christian."

I have often been tempted, when looking round at the
existing state of things in the Church and the medical
profession, to fear that the prince may have been right.
But no ; God is true, in spite of all our cowardice and
follies. And, somehow, people who keep aloof from the
battle of life, and will do nothing till they find a perfect
set of conditions to work in and feel secure from the

ON HOMCEOPA THY. 215

chance of making mistakes, may be clear-sighted about
things close at hand; but they are seldom allowed to
project their vision very far into the future. Hahnemann
himself, who suffered poverty, and reproach, and bodily
pain, and mental anxiety for the sake of what he believed
to be the truth, and who laboured manfully with such
means as he possessed till he had succeeded in altering
his circumstances, is more likely to have been a prophet.
And he thought that true homoeopathy might begin to be
practised in three hundred years, and not before.

But may the Lord shorten those days for His elect's
sake !

CHAP TEE VII.
CONCLUSION.

" May I die if I do not revenge myself on you," said Euclid's
brother to him.

" May I die if I do not force you to love me again," said Euclid.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSION.

I have intimated on a former occasion that I desire to
confine our conversations to questions which belong
properly to the domain of science. You will not suppose
from this that I think the theological teaching which
a child receives, or the sort of Deity in whom a sick man
believes, a matter of no practical importance. On the
contrary, if you have followed me thus far, you must, I
think, see, that if psychic science proves anything, it
proves clearly these three things. Firstly, That the
normal law of man's being is one, not of acts, or of words,
or of sentiments, but of daily, hourly, life-long and com-
plete self-surrender to the law that is above him and to
the good of mankind. Secondly, That the very idea of
trying to keep that law " in our own strength " involves
an absurdity ; and, Thirdly, That it is not enough for us
to be taught the law of our life and the consequences of
departing from it, for we need above all other things to
believe in some righteous Being, whom we may worship
continually and serve regardless of all consequences, and
whom we may trust to make us righteous. My reason
for avoiding thus far the subject of theology has been
that I wished to preserve myself from even the appear-
ance of interfering with the special form in which you

220

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

may think fit to convey religious instruction to your
children. But there are one or two points connected
with the subject on which I must say just a few words.

Whatever may be the theological opinions which you
yourselves hold, I would say, avoid conveying religious
instruction to children in the shape of controvertible
propositions ; and that more especially in this age of wide-
spread controversy. Give them, in the way of direct dog-
matic teaching, nothing more than their own experience
may suffice absolutely to prove. For all else trust to the
influence of your example and the contagion of your faith.

Never require from young people an acquiescence in
any particular scheme of doctrine. If you heartily
believe in the creed which you profess, your little
pupils' minds are almost sure to become more or less
impregnated with it ; and all the more so if they do not
suppose that you think yourselves infallible. And if
you do not heartily believe it, if you only yield to it
an intellectual assent, if you only believe that you ought
to believe it, then the more earnestly you try to impress
it upon them, the more likely you are to magnetise them
with a sense of the contrast between (your feelings and
your words.

A great many people seem to be haunted by a vague
idea of some mysterious necessity for imbuing children's
minds with what they call "the truths of the Bible."
There is some strange confusion about this. Of course it
is necessary to imbue children's minds with truth ; and of
course the most important of all truths known to man are
contained in the Bible. But the fact of a set of truths
being written down in the Bible, possesses of itself no
magic power to prevent their being injurious to children's

CONCLUSION.

221

minds if presented to them in the wrong order or the
wrong way. The Bible is the very best book for teachers ;
but it seems to me to be by no means throughout or in-
evitably a good text-book for pupils. On the whole, I
would say, gather from the Bible rather the spirit than
the actual matter of your instructions. Nature, after all,
is, and must be, the children's Bible. Trust to the Author
of nature to write His" own name in it for them; and do
you learn from your book how to guide your pupils in
learning to read theirs.

Whatever your creed may be, you do at least believe
this much, viz., that when your children represent God
to themselves in any definite shape at all, they should
think of Him no otherwise than as a good, kind, earnest
Man, who desires to cure their diseases, to improve their
morals, and to impart to them instruction. And yet it is
possible so to bring up a child, that it shall throughout
life, and especially during illness, shrink in mere nervous
dislike, born of association, from the notion of trusting
to any human being, and most especially to one who is
morally earnest. Therefore, if any part of your plans of
education has the effect of causing them to feel, either
that a total escape from human influence would be a relief
and a deliverance, or that religious and moral earnestness,
and anxiety for the welfare of others, make people less
sympathising than they otherwise would be, be sure that
your plans are somehow wrong ; and let no conceit about
your own theories induce you to delay making some altera-
tion. Any evil you can fall into is less evil than that.
And if you suspect that the fault lies not in your plan
but in yourself, if you really cannot make your children
love and trust you, and are content to remain in a state

222

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

in which you cannot, then for Heaven's sake give up the
charge of their minds to some one who can. So much
at least the most sceptical may concede to the instinct
which has prompted Christendom to cling so passionately
to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.

And now may I beg those of you who are Trinitarians
to look boldly in the face with me for a moment the
spectre which I know has been haunting you ever since
we began to study together. How is that belief which
has been precious to you from your childhood affected
(you long but scarcely dare to ask yourselves) by the
revelations of psychic science? Did Christ come to
claim a kingdom, or did He " only " mean to teach a
science ? For it seems as if those passages, in which He
prophesied that His voluntary death should give Him
power to draw men to Himself for their own salvation,
were after all "only" enunciations of a law of nature true
for all men, and in some measure for animals, and even
for impersonal entities, such as sciences, theories, and
particular aspects of truth.

Well, be it so. Would you expect an Incarnation of
the "I am" not to enunciate general laws? Would He
have more fully proved His claim to be called the First-
begotten of the Father, " who abideth in the House con-
tinually," if, instead of understanding and acquiescing in,
and interpreting for us, the harsh-seeming deeds of our
dear mother Nature, He had disowned her authority and
violated her laws ? Any mad fanatic can say, " I am the
Son of God." But the proof would consist in proving
himself to be the true child of faithful Nature. God and
Nature are not at strife, as we quarrelsome children too
often take for granted. I cannot help thinking sometimes

CONCLUSION.

223

that, when we fancy so, they are mourning together over
our perverse misunderstanding of them both.

But then if it be true that every human brain receives
the power to influence other human brains for good on con-
dition of voluntary self-renunciation, what will become of
the doctrine of a special Atonement ?

I really do not exactly know what will become of it.
As I told you before, I consider it my business to take
care of babies ; doctrines are no nurselings of mine.
But if you want to know what I think will become of it,
I will tell you. Inasmuch as the self-elected protectors
of the doctrine of Atonement have not succeeded yet in
smothering it with all the thick foul smoke which they
have blown round it by way of a defence, I rather think
that it must be possessed of a strong principle of vitality
of its own, and that it would be very well able to take
care of itself if people would only let it alone. I have a
notion that when it gets a little more fresh air it will
thrive faster than ever. But that is no affair of yours or
mine that I know of. We have our own nursery-windows
to keep open.

In the meantime, if you are afraid of your own per-
sonal feeling of allegiance to Christ being weakened by
the discovery that His teaching is truer than you supposed,
and that even those who do not believe in His divinity
must, if they study nature and history honestly, come to
believe in His wisdom, will you sometimes put to yourself
this question : —

Which would be the truest Redeemer of the wrorld and
deserve the most gratitude from men ? A Being endowed
with supernatural qualities, who should come down to
earth to do a few irregular miraculous acts, and utter

224

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

certain maxima of transcendental morality which need to
be modified in practice by our worldly wisdom] or one
who should show men the true use and power of the
faculties which they themselves possess and were mis-
using, and fling through time a line of golden grains for
science in after ages to gather as she passes, as a witness
to the Church that she is in the right track ?

You thought you had got hold of a special gospel for
men, perhaps for men of your own particular creed.
But for aught that we can see to the contrary, all men
alike may be related to monkeys. 'Well, He bade you
trust for salvation, not to your faith, or your intellect, or
your place in the scale of creation, but to the goodness
of the Father who cares for the sparrows.

You thought that the truth of the Gospel was to be
proved by miracles ; and now it seems as though many of
the mirii-Ies vr^re mesmeric phenomena, and could be
imitated by all sorts of impostors.

WeLL He warned you that the people who trusted to
••signs and wanders" were an "evil and adulterous
-feneration. "

You fancied that faith and morals were sacred subjects,
not regulated by the laws of nature and too far apart
from all common studies for any but divines to teach
you anything about ; and now doctors say that they are
tvolved according to natural processes by the action of
the same cosmical forces which produce living forms and
glowing colours, "Well, He said that when we doubt
about our Father's care, we should settle our doubts by
" considering the lilies."

You thought that there was one absolutely right faith,
and that all other religions were absolutely wrong ones.

CONCLUSIOX.

225

And now it seems as though the truth were pretty equally
shared between people of all shades of opinion.

"Well, He never gave you leave to treat any man as a
heathen until he obstinately refused to listen to what his
neighbours had to say.

You knew you were " miserable sinners "of course;
but still you have always been considered careful sick-
nurses and exemplary mothers. You knew that clearer
information on medical subjects would enable you to do
more good to your charges ; but you never supposed that
you were doing much harm in the world. And now it
turns out that you have been doing fearful mischief, not
only from ignorance, but often from mere self-indulgence
in things which you fancied were of no consequence.

"Well, He warned you that you would have to " give
account of every idle word ; " and that the harlots were
nearer to the kingdom of heaven than the people who
thought they were going on all right.

Ay, and let us face boldly the last, most startling sug-
gestion of modern science. What is going to become of
our moral laws — those laws for which it used to be con-
sidered so needful to keep up religious sanctions ? We
used to think that it was right to obey the command-
ments and keep the Sabbath and pray and go to church,
because of the " honour due to God's holy name ; u and
now here come hygienists coolly claiming the Sabbath as
a day of recreation for man ; and phrenologists who tell
us that praying is not asking God to alter His plans to
please us, but exercising certain organs under the sutures
of our skulls ; and mesmerists whose notions of a Church
is an institution for keeping up a healthy kind of magnetic
action among people of different temperaments. What

226

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

next ? Are all man's morals and duties to be defined for
him by doctors, who are so far like God that they " know
his frame and remember that he is but dust," but who
otherwise seem to have very little notion of divinity of
any kind ? We have not arrived at anything very wicked
yet, it is true ; but what is to be the end of it all ? Where
shall we stop ?

Well, perhaps we shall not stop anywhere, ever, till
the tide stops heaving and there is no more sea. Perhaps
we shall find that we do not know quite all there is to
know, even then. Eut why need we disturb our minds
about that now ] Did God put His laws into our charge ?
Were we commissioned to draw a line in the sky and
hold the planets up to prevent them from falling over it ?
Heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle
of any law that God made shall fail ; but whether God
made the law that anything shall stand permanently still
is another question, and one to which you and I need not
find an answer. We agreed before that our business with
books was to get help from them in taking care of babies ;
and surely our concern with laws is not to protect them,
but to study them that we may know how to take care
of babies.

But what do you think of the man who nearly two
thousand years ago affronted the fanaticism of the pious
Jews for their sacred laws, and scared them into cruci-
fying Him by telling them that even God's holy Sabbath
was. made for the use of man, and that man was not made
for the Sabbath ?

The long and short of the matter is just this : If you
want to be kept in good conceit with yourselves, or with
any leader whom you ever worshipped, or with any plan

CONCLUSION.

227

you ever followed, or with any theory you ever believed,
take care what new study you plunge into, for cool in-
vestigation has a strange trick of knocking over all sorts
of idols. But if you would like to be made to feel,
through every fibre of your being, that He knew more
about you than your nearest friends, that He is the best
teacher that ever lived, and that the world owes more to
Him than to all its priests and doctors, then my advice
to you is, in God's name study away. You will study
long enough, I promise you, before you come to the end
of your astonishment at His wisdom.

For my own part, I think I may say that I hardly re-
member ever feeling what could properly be called awe
of anything in human shape until it was shown me how
that Hebrew Carpenter, whose INanie had been made a
scarecrow of, by people who wanted to frighten me from
inquiring into facts and from trusting in the Author of
facts, must have quietly solved beforehand some of the
deepest problems of modern science.

I am well aware that in making this confession I am
running the risk of giving you no exalted opinion of
my own character. A higher type of mind than mine
would have been overawed by the moral beauty of the
character of Christ. But my object in speaking to you is
not, I hope, to give you an exalted opinion of my own
phrenological development. I want to prove to you that
your child, be the shape of his head what it may, has
something within it by which Christ may lay hold of
him 1 and that it is your business not to let your theories
stand in the way of your Master, and your fault if your
child is not saved from a listless and useless life.

Our fault if our children are not saved ! There are

228 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

hours, believe me, in a mother's life, when, be the shape
of her head what it may, she needs no theory to make
her remember with thankfulness that, supposing an atone-
ment should be necessary, she and her babes will not be
required to offer it.

Whether we believe or not that the Unseen Lord of
Life once manifested Himself in a visible form, it seems
to be evident at least that our relationship to Him, how-
ever spiritual, is no mystical or imaginary one. It is as
real an attachment as that between an unborn infant and
its mother; and phrenologists say that it has, like the latter,
a physical local symbol. Will you remember this when any
one professes to inform you on what occasion you began
to be children of the God who is your life, or by what
means you may persuade Him not to hate you for ever ?

Religious writers are very fond of asserting that, until
you have felt the burden of your sins, you cannot come to
Christ to be freed from them. This sounds very humble
and pious, but I fear it too often covers great ignorance
and want of faith. Did Christ come to save mankind,
or only such men as have a certain type of mind ? Will
the great Physician cure me of the disease from which I
happen to be suffering? or does He expect me to drive
it out myself by inoculating my soul with a disease of
which He has already cured some other person? Paul
and Bunyan may have had, no doubt, a sense of their own
sinfulness very real and terrible, and they were quite right
to flee to Christ to be freed from it. But if a child is
born with a flat back to his skull, deficient instincts of
self-preservation, great self-esteem, a great capacity for
ideality, trust and benevolence, and little veneration, he
is by nature almost incapable of understanding what sin

CONCLUSION.

229

means, and he must come to Christ before he can be
made to understand it. If you try to frighten him into
a sense of his guilt, the only result will be that you teach
him to distrust God and hate you ; that you excite his
worst passions and undermine his health.

Even among infants you can see that some are naturally
much more sensitive to reproof than others. Many a
child will be quite overpowered with shame and grief, if
you say, when it is naughty, " I do not like you now."
But I had one who, when I said so, used quietly to turn
round, put her arms confidingly round my neck, and say,
with some perplexity but no distress in her face, " Don't
you like me, mother? Well, / like you then." Suppose
I had rejected the babe's caress until I had worried her
into appearing frightened and unhappy, how God-like
that would have proved me to be ! and how much the
better moral state the little one would have been in !
And this same constitutional difference of which we are
speaking, manifests itself in later life, in a markedly
different feeling towards the unknown Author of ^Nature.
There are people who have so strong a physical sense of
their relationship to Him that it revolts them to hear
that relationship even spoken of. They trust Him so
absolutely that they would almost rather not be told
anything about Him, about His character or His plans
for them. They are conscious of doing many things
contrary to the code of right which has been taught
them, and productive of consequences seemingly evil.
But they instinctively take it for granted that He who
made them knew what He was about and had His own
reasons for making them as they are ; that He never
would let them really cross His will ; and that, in His

230 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE,

own time and way, He will educate them into whatever
He wants them to be. They can perhaps say with all
their hearts : " Thy will be done;" but they do not thereby
mean, " Let holiness prevail at any cost to me ; " for they
have often the mistiest ideas as to what holiness consists
in, and do not particularly care whether it prevails or not.
They rather mean, " Never spare me a sorrow which will
fit me to take my proper part in the harmony of creation;"
or perhaps they simply mean that out of instinctive un-
reasoning affection for God, they are willing to bear pain
if it will give Him pleasure, and do not much care whether
the effect of it on themselves is good or bad — educational
or destructive. When sorrow comes, they need no preacher
to explain to them that it has a message to their souls ;
they are often, in youth at least, physically conscious
that Some one is caressing them into shape. Intense
suffering only gives them an intense longing to turn round
and kiss a Hand which they feel to be near them. Unless,
indeed, the suffering should happen to come through the
invervention of a human hand, in which case they are
apt (in their uneducated state) to struggle desperately.
They need Christ for a mediator between them and man-
kind, not between them and God.

Such persons are often neither attracted by good actions
nor repelled by great crimes ; they worship genius and
poiver ; but they are physically sensitive to magnetic in-
fluence, and therefore they shrink, though perhaps with-
out knowing why, from habitually selfish or low-minded
people. Their moral perceptions are very blunt ; but
their aesthetic sensibilities are very keen ; and they can-
not conceive of any one caring so much for any earthly
object as to please the Creator of beauty. I once heard

CONCLUSION.

231

a little girl say : "I never could really give my heart to
any one, even if he were perfectly good, unless he were a
great musician." A friend who was present remarked
afterwards that such a child's religious education must
consist in her learning how great a musician He was who
resolved the discords of human life. There was much
kindly wisdom in the remark. If Christ were presented
to such persons as the Teacher who would show them how
to take their fit part in the harmony of Creation, they would
at first try to obey Him as they would any clever teacher ;
and then there would grow up in their hearts (I have
watched the process often) a feeling towards Himself per-
sonally, compounded of gratitude for His teaching, marvel
at His genius, and aesthetic admiration for the harmony of
His character. But as for teaching them doctrines about
atonement for their sins, and mediation between them-
selves and the Author of the beauty for which they feel so
intense a sympathy, you might as well pull a baby away
from its mother's breast and begin to talk metaphysics to
it about why she condescended to let it rest there. The
baby would only scream and struggle ; and, if it could, it
would scratch and bite you ; not on account of any logical
objection to what you were saying, but simply because it
felt that you had no business there at all.

Now, whatever form of religion you profess, your creed
contains no article about the divinity of Bunyan, or of
Luther, or of any particular religious book or magazine,
or of any special minister of religion. And I venture to
hope that in all matters connected with the education of
your children you will " stand fast in the liberty where-
with Christ hath made you free," and decline to be judged,
and refrain from judging others, by any standard except

232 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

His words. When I first began the work of educating
my children, I believed in a vague spiritualism, and could
not see the use of being bound by any creed at all. But
some bitter experience has taught me, as it may perhaps
teach you, that the strictest of creeds and the most
inflexible of liturgies may be no bondage at all, but a most
blessed deliverance; first and most obviously from the
desire which seems to possess all my friends, to impose
their phrenological developments and their morbid fancies
upon me • and next, and this is of far more consequence to
me, from the temptation which I find perpetually beset-
ting me to endeavour to impose mine upon my children.

If the back of your child's head is small, his brow full,
and his organ of veneration very large, the dominant idea
in his mind will be that of the constant presence with him
of a Holy Spirit, his Teacher, Reprover, and Guide ; fear
will in him be, not lost in a vague instinct of trust, but
absorbed into awe. The less you interfere with his reli-
gion in any way, the better. If you train him well in
other respects, he will be more fit to be your religious
teacher than you to be his.

As a general rule, when the projection of the head
backwards from the line of the spine is small, there is
little need for stimulating the tendency to what are called
" religious ideas " or " disinterested sentiments." The
danger is, not of the more commonplace and animal forms
of selfishness, but, according to the rest of the develop-
ment, of insanity, fanaticism, sudden passions, or unnatural
crimes, or of fantastic devotion to unworthy objects. The
smaller, therefore, the back of your child's head (or, in
other words, the more he is remarked as being " a rare
specimen of humanity," "an interesting little thing," "a

CONCLUSION.

233

spiritual creature," " a child marked out for great things,"
&c. &c), the more need there is that you should make
for him a warm, cheery, magnetic home ; that you should
endeavour to interest him in all common human concerns ;
that you should surround him with people whom he may
heartily admire ; that you should teach him to see the
faults of those whom he loves, but in such a way as not
to undermine his reverence for what is good in them ;
that you should make him feel how much injury is done,
both to the comfort of others and to his own spiritual
state, by the neglect of small duties and of routine acts
of courtesy, and by the habit of indulging every passing
temper and emotion ; and, above all, that you should
carefully avoid putting a premium upon religious senti-
ments, or upon great and sudden efforts either of self-
denial or of self-control.

Perhaps this may be the fittest place in which to say a
few words about a question which has been often asked
by theologians who are arguing for the necessity of an
authoritative standard in religious matters, but which has
never, so far as I am aware, been answered in a manner
likely to be satisfactory or intelligible to those who are
not themselves students of scientific psychology.

The objects, it is said, for which a man will feel most
reverence and most affection, will depend on the nature
of his own tastes and habits. Does it follow that I am
in a truly religious frame of mind because my organ of
veneration or benevolence is in an active condition ? Are
not all heathenism and all maudlin sentimentality caused
by the excitement of religious and amiable, and even moral
sentiments in connection with unworthy objects ?

234

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

The answer usually given by phrenologists is, in sub-
stance, this : —

"Man possesses an organ of veneration. He worships
by means of it. If it is educated, he worships the right
thing. But the organ requires to be educated ; or else,
if it is large he will worship the wrong thing, and if it is
small he will worship nothing at all."

" But " (I can well imagine an uninitiated inquirer
to ask) "in what does this education which you advise
consist? "Who shall decide whether it is being carried
on aright ? What shall be the standard of it 1 How
will you recognise the right object of worship ? "

I answer : False religious teaching may indeed stimu-
late any one or more of the religious and moral senti-
ments. And in the course of a child's education, every
portion of its moral nature may be stimulated in turn,
by the presentation of a variety of objects, none of
which is nevertheless the true and ultimate object of
worship.

But a healthy mental education must consist in
training the whole of the religious and moral feelings
into consentaneous and harmonious action, and in sub-
jecting all the rest of the mind to their control.

The Deity, then, for whom the science of psychology
cries out, is one for whom every human being, be the
quality of his mind and the nature of his tastes what
they may, can feel the utmost degree of reverence of
which his nature is capable. And the true Deity must
not only be but do. He must do acts such as men can
try to imitate, and the imitation of which will train
men in truthfulness and kindness. He must be one
to whom every human being can trust, trust fully and

CONCLUSION.

235

entirely, for now and for ever ; for daily bread and for
eternal salvation ; for himself and for every creature
that is dear to him, and for every cause which is sacred
to him; the mother for her reprobate son, and the
child for its dying canary ; the Jew for his nation and
the Catholic for his church ; the politician for the in-
terests which he represents, and the student for the
advancement of science. Trust, not with the passive
mystic self-abnegation of a Brahmin ; but with a confi-
dence which encourages every aspiration of the heart and
quickens it into a hope, and which steadies vague im-
pulses into persevering exertion.

Every sick nurse ought to knoKw that there are great
numbers of people in the world who, without saying- much
about it, cherish secretly for the pursuit to which they
have devoted their lives, a feeling which is a sort of com-
pound of the feeling of St. Paul for Christ, of the psalm-
ists for Zion, and of a tigress for her cubs. I do not
pretend to say how far it is wholesome or right that this
should be the case. I only say it is so. Our business is
to treat rightly the facts which we find ; and this class of
facts we often treat very wrongly. When an enthusiast
such as I have been speaking of becomes ill in body and
prostrate in mind, and yet, as often happens, clings only
more feverishly than ever to his beloved idea, when he is
depressed by his own inability to serve any longer the
cause to which he has dedicated his life, and made still
more wretched perhaps by the reflection that the interests
of that cause are suffering, as he supposes, in inefficient
hands ; if then the theologian can tell the patient that
He who made the beauty and truth which he sees must
know best how and when to manifest them to the world,

236 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

that He who inspired his own passionate love must him-
self care too much for the sacred cause to allow it to be
compromised by any one's follies ; and that God is send-
ing him an interval of sickness as a rest or as a discipline
for himself, in order to fit him to serve that cause better,
in this world or some other, than he has ever yet been
able to do, the theologian will indeed have brought a
gospel to the man, and I am sure that, even if the doctor
does not himself share the clergyman's faith, he will wel-
come him as his best ally. But if the clergyman can tell
the patient no better news than that God counts science
foolishness and art vanity, and that He expects people on
their sick-beds to leave off caring for earthly concerns
and to twist themselves into a state of fuss about their
own souls, then really I do not think the good man ought
to wonder if science, in the person of the doctor, should,
without entering into metaphysical discussions, order him
and his theology off the premises.

A man who is passionately devoted to any cause can-
not begin suddenly to care about his own safety. He
could not do it if he were well and strong ; still less
can he do it when he is restless and weak. And if he
could, it is the very last thing he should be encouraged
to do, for the sake of his health both of body and mind.

You see that medical science, though it can teach no
true theology, is yet possessed of a rigid test for the de-
tection of false religions. Any religion, wherever it may
profess to come from, which causes a man to feel that the
common business of life is unworthy of his most hearty
and persevering attention, which diminishes his respect
for law and order, or his desire to copy any form of
natural or ideal beauty, which discourages him in any

CONCLUSION.

237

hope, which weakens his trust in God or his love for any
living creature, above all which lessens his reverence for
any truth or goodness, is in so far, and to that man, a false
religion — that is to say, it is no true revelation to him of
his Maker, Eedeemer, and Teacher.

This is the message of science to the religious world ;
and this, it seems to me, she should have cried aloud till
every pulpit in Christendom shook with the sound. She
should have long ago flung down the gauntlet and an-
nounced herself as divinely commissioned to put the false
gods to flight, leaving the clergy to find the true God
where they can. But no, Science (God bless her) has one
great fault : a certain assumed and Quaker-like impassive-
ness, which is misleading to those who do not know what
lies hidden underneath. If she is not exactly a coward
(and she has shown herself brave enough at times), she
has at least that quietness of nature which is akin to, and
and which looks like, cowardice. She has no particular
dislikes or prejudices. She would live in peace with any
neighbour who would consent to let her and hers alone.
" The only form of fighting which interests me," she
says, " is man's fight with the forces of nature." She
will bear any amount of insult and. slander without a
word of retort or even of explanation. Only, when she
perceives that anybody is going to do harm to those to
whom she has undertaken to do good, she is apt some-
times to say in a certain significant and deadly fashion of
her own, " Friend, thee isn't wanted here" 1 Whether
the wholesome indignation which found intelligible ex-
pression in the shape of a " whip of small cords," may

1 See the story of the Quaker in " Uncle Tom's Cabin."

238 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

not have been on the whole more divine and more merci-
ful than this sort of superhuman calmness, is a question
which I do not feel called on to discuss. All I want
to do is to make you understand, as far as I can, the
facts of the world in which we are living, and the
motives which are swaying the minds of those men whose
orders, as doctors, we have to carry out, whose nerves, as
patients, we have to soothe, and whose children and suc-
cessors we have to train to take their part in the struggle
which is coming.

People who are beginning to see the cruelty and folly
of the system of mutual interference which is being car-
ried on between philosophers and theologians and the
students of physical science, often ask, as if in a sort of
despair : " Why is the truth so difficult to arrive at ? Why
are people so differently constituted ? Why are good and
earnest men allowed to misunderstand and torture each
other as they do ? ,; It is never worth while to dogmatise
about why God does things. But the fact that good
people are so made as to be hardly capable of understand-
ing each other or of seeing things in the same light,
seems to me to be the crowning proof of the great laws
which we have been tracing all along, viz., that the truth
shall never be arrived at by any form of merely intellec-
tual exertion ; and that every step we take in intellectual
and spiritual progress shall throw a fresh strain upon, and
necessitate a more constant activity of the moral faculties,
— shall involve, that is to say, a more complete and abso-
lute self -surrender.

An agricultural labourer, for instance, or an uneducated
mechanic, is seldom required to make any higher moral
effort than is involved in curbing his temper and appe-

CONCLUSION.

239

tites for the comfort of his family, or at the most in sac-
rificing the material welfare of those dear to him for the
sake of honesty and truth. God forbid that I should
suggest that the struggle may not sometimes be a severe
one, but it is not at least a very complicated one. The
thing he has to do is a simple thing enough. He knows
exactly what he has to do, and why ; and the cases will
be comparatively rare 'in which he can be troubled by any
doubt that, if he can only manage to do it at all, he
will be thereby serving God, drawing closer the bond
between himself and all that is good, and growing in
favour with most of those whose good opinion is of
any real importance to him. If he feels combatively
inclined, he must indeed keep his instincts so far in
check as to avoid quarrelling with the people in his own
immediate neighbourhood; but he can harmlessly exer-
cise them by indulging in virtuous indignation against
those of whom he really knows nothing; such as the
Pope, for instance, who lives a long way off; or that inde-
finite personality, "the Infidel." His prejudices do little
harm either to himself or to any one else. In fact, the
Infidel and the Pope are for him quite mythical person-
ages, and serve the purpose of a safety-valve for surplus
animal antagonism, just as the " devil" does at a revival
meeting. But the case is different when a man has once
been called to the life of a leader in the world of
thought. Then this awful choice is put before him : either
he must leave half his work undone ; or else he must bear
to hear all that is dearest and most sacred to him, all on
which he founds his trust for the present and his hopes
for the future, denied, mocked at, and blasphemed ; and
he must keep his temper still, and be "all things to

240

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

all men," and acknowledge that the blasphemers are as
good men as himself, and quite as much in earnest, and
just as much as himself taught of God, and commissioned
moreover by God to teach him. I have spoken of the
respective moral effects of food which is, and of that
which is not, over-tender and too easy of digestion.
Well, picture to yourselves an eager nervous child made
to sit still and grind up slowly a plate full of roast-beef,
while he is longing to be allowed to swTallow down a bit
of minced meat, and have done with it, and rush off
after some project which appears most important to his
excited imagination ; magnify the picture a million times ;
and then you will get some idea of what is going on in
the studies of great authors all around you.

But a suggestion of another answer to the question wThy
thinking men are allowed to misunderstand and worry one
another has sometimes presented itself to me.

The wars of men, and the extraordinary state of con-
fusion into which the cleverest of them sometimes get
their affairs, have often turned out to be heaven-sent
opportunities for women to rise out of their dollish idle-
ness, their moral cowardice, and their slavery to fashion.
I feel, T confess, not so sanguine as some people do,
as to the results of what is called the " Eights of
Women Movement." But I am very glad that it
occurred to Florence Nightingale, when the masculine
authorities had got things in general into a muddle
in the Crimea, to go and nurse the sick ; even though
her doing so involved her overstepping the limits
which the prejudices of her time imposed on the ac-
tivity of ladies. And I think that the position of
women has been wonderfully improved ever since she

CONCLUSION.

241

did so. And when you read what that arch-heretic
Ernest Renan says of isolation, and of lonely labours,
and of the misrepresentation and persecution which
a thinker suffers, for the sake of that portion of truth
which God has committed into his hands, do you not
feel as if God had made you women, and prevented
you from being preachers or bishops, just on purpose that
you might be able" to sympathise with the man in his
sorrow, and (should opportunity offer) to comfort and
help him, without being obliged to express any opinions
about miracles ?

Therefore, if any of you should happen to have a
husband, a brother, a physician, a friend, for whose
character you cannot help feeling reverence, while yet
his unbelief for what you have been taught to consider
fundamental truths shocks you, may I hope that you will
let nobody's prejudices induce you to deal with him
otherwise than very gently. Few things in history are
sadder or more sublime than the lives of some of those
great men, who, having met the Holy Lord of Nature in
a mountain alone, and caught a glimpse of His awful
glory, have trodden under foot what none could have
made better use of than they, in their wrath against some
false likeness of Him which they have found set up on
the altar under the name of " Saviour " !

Only fancy letting one's self be " saved " by the Christ
of certain religious sects out of the hands of the " Unseen
Lord of Life " of Hahnemann's Organon of Medicine !

If you ever have to do with such a man as I have been
describing, let him see by all means that you think him
in the wrong. Use your influence to induce him to listen
to what true and right-minded Christians say. Help him

Q

242 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

to find out how he may demolish the idol without destroy-
ing the gold. But do not condemn him to loneliness of
heart in this world, or threaten him with everlasting
destruction in the next. Remember our Teuton an-
cestresses, those grand women in the German forests. It
was to interpose their loving hearts between the com-
batants that they rushed on to the field of battle, not to
stir up strife. It was to heal the wounds that the heroes
inflicted on each other, not to drop in poison. Or, at the
worst, if they felt that there was a needs-be for the con-
flict, they went to give courage to the husbands and
fathers who were fighting for their freedom, not to frighten
and perplex them with tales about the terrors of a future
life. And remember that the man Jesus whom priests
could never have invented, and who, as they profess to
think, still keeps the keys of that unknown future about
which they talk so glibly, He has promised that every
manner of sin shall be forgiven unto men except blasphemy
against the inspirations of the Father who is Love.

How, while so much about which we are all agreed is
waiting to be done, any one who really cares either for
Christ in heaven, or for anything worth caring about on
earth, can keep aloof from his neighbours and refuse their
help for the sake of any, even the most important, diffe-
rence of opinion, puzzled me, I confess, a good deal at one
time. Politics, education, literature, science, and art,
seem to me like the dumb creatures in the Northern Saga,
" looking out for the Redeemer" — looking for a leader,
a purpose, and a common tie. But they wTill never be
brought to acknowledge that the highest purpose of man
upon earth is to persuade his Creator to alter His mind.
They are willing, I am sure, to own as their leader and

CONCLUSION.

243

teacher Him (call Hini by what name you may) who came
to do God's will, the whole of it, with all His body and
soul, by caring for the bodies and souls of others at all
costs to His own. But they never wTill consent to accept
as His representative any Church which teaches that some
of God's laws are holy and the rest profane ; which neglects
men's bodies while it cramps their souls.

We trusted that it was He who should have redeemed
them.

Yes, and He will redeem them yet from all their
evils.

" In God's own time, but yet awhile
Our bark at sea must ride ;
Cast after cast, by force or guile
All waters must be tried.

And if, for our unworthiness,
Toil, prayer, and watching fail,

In disappointment He can bless
So love at heart prevail."

Only do not fail till you are sure you must. Do not
import into your creed any sort of article about " believing
in" the devil. Eemember that " of all ways of breaking
the third commandment, the most blasphemous is, when
you have lost a child because there was a dunghill at
your door, to sit down and talk of resigning yourself to
the will of Providence, instead of clearing away the dung-
hill before you lose another."

Do not be discouraged because things refuse to go the
way that you expect or want them to go. What we call a
disappointment often means that the finest seed of our
harvest has fallen and sown itself before we were aware
that it had ripened. None are so likely to reap in joy as
those whose seed is thus sown for them without their

244 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

knowledge, while they are weeping at its loss. " Never
be afraid to give up your best, and God will give you His
better." Do not be more angry than you can help with
those whom God uses as instruments by means of which
to give you " His better ; " remember Kenan's summing
up of history : — that when we all meet in the Eternal City,
the persecuted will thank the persecutor for helping him
to his crown.

Do not be forgetful — and especially do not fear — to
entertain in your minds and homes those whose modes of
speech are strange to you ; " for by so doing some have
entertained messengers unawares " — messengers from God
to themselves ; or perchance messengers from themselves
to those for whose welfare they are anxious, but whose
hearts they know not how to reach.

Do not be deterred from anything you want to do by
sneers about being Quixotic and wanting the millennium.
There is nothing disgraceful in wanting the millennium,
provided that you are modest enough to own that you
have not got it. And if a thing wants doing, it is a
strange reason to give for not doing it, that the doing of
it would make the world more like the millennium !

Do not — until the millennium has arrived, and there
are no more sick or cross babies — think you cannot help
in the progress of humanity because you are not allowed
to do things that men can do ; or because, when you have
obtained the right, you find you lack the power. The
woman who is said to be blessed among all women was no
political agitator or heroine of competitive examinations ;
but a working-man's wife with just enough of learning to
know how not to talk when things were going that she
did not understand. And those who honour her most

CONCLUSION.

245

represent her with no crown but the stars ; with a baby
in her arms, and the world with all its glories under, her
her feet.

And don't be afraid. Men are always telling us, in all
sorts of different ways, what Manoah told his wife, that
we shall die if we see. But she knew better 1 than to
believe that God would grant knowledge to, or accept
sacrifices from, creatures whom He was minded to destroy.

" Serve God and fear no man • " and " don't believe in
anything worse than yourself; " not in anything, whether
visible or invisible, whether walking on two legs or on
six. " I know Worse of myself than I do of any other
animal," I heard a learned divine say in answer to a child's
question about the future fate of her pets. And I know
worse of myself, and, to judge from your own confessions,
I should say some of you know worse of yourselves than
any of us do of Lucifer. It is possible, of course, that
Lucifer may, like ourselves, have got into mischief from
vanity and self-will when some one was giving his life to
keep him out ; indeed nature is so alike all through that
I think it is highly likely ; but then you see we can't
know that of him ; and we often learn that it is true of
ourselves by sad experience, and quite apart from any doc-
trinal teaching.

Never fancy you believe anything merely on the
ground that it is logically proved. For the upshot of
all sound logic is to prove that nothing can be proved ;
that every valid conclusion is a re-statement of the
premisses in another form ; and that any conclusion
which goes beyond that is unwarranted. And if I
were asked to point out the two greatest benefactors
1 Judges xiii. 22, 23.

246

THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE.

to humanity that this century has produced, I think I
should be inclined to mention Mr. Babbage, who made
a machine for working out series ; and Mr. Jevons, who
made a machine for stringing together syllogisms.
Between them they have conclusively proved, by the
unanswerable logic of facts, that calculation and reason-
ing, like weaving and ploughing, are work, not for
human souls, but for clever combinations of iron and
wood. If you spend time in doing work that a machine
could do faster than yourselves, it should only be for
exercise, as you swing dumb-bells ; or for amusement,
as you dig in your garden ; or to soothe your nerves
by its mechanicalness, as you take up your knitting ; not
in any hope of so working your way to the truth. You
can get anything you please by artificial arrangements,
whether of matter or of ideas; any thing, that is, any
inorganic transformation of already existing materials ;
any thing you please, except growth. To develop that,
you must sacrifice tilings; to develop it in perfection,
you must be prepared to sacrifice, if need be, all sorts
of things, physical and intellectual ; and even some-
times some things which seem like moral and religious
good.

Nothing is easier than to build up by logic a con-
sistent-looking scheme of religion and morals, which
will seem perfect till some one happens to change your
premisses ; and then will crumble. Life, the life which
uses all material, and repairs waste, and re-forms all that
has decayed, consists in forces that work invisibly and
bring about perpetual change. And when the strain of
all this change comes on you, you will need, not beliefs
accepted in lazy dependence on other people's reasoning,

CONCLUSION.

247

but the faith which is the answer to sacrifice and
prayer. How sorely you may need that faith, how
sorely or how soon, God only knows. The life of a
woman who dares to study freely, will be for many
generations to come, I fear (as I am sure you have
already found out that it is in this generation), a stormy
one. What matter, so the storm bring us at last to the
haven where we would be ?

At last ? No, but at once. For the wildest hurricane
has a still centre of calm progress which those may find
who have courage to steer straight through across the
wind. And this is Eternal Life; to know the "I am,"
the only true God, the God who reveals Himself in
the forces of Nature to those who are studying how
to benefit mankind; and Jesus Christ whom He has
,sent.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

L

ON PHRENOLOGY.

The principles which seem to lie beneath all practical rules for
mental treatment might be expressed in phrenological language
thus : —

1st, Any mental act of self-renunciation is performed by
means of, and puts into a state of activity some portion of the
so-called " religious and moral" region of the brain.

The religious and moral region is thus divided by phreno-
logists. Benevolence, imitation, and trust, in front ; hope,
conscientiousness, and firmness or perseverance behind, and
verueration in the middle. In any state except that of perfect
health, that is to say, in any state of which we have practical
experience, some of these organs are too inactive. A great part
of our business, either as educators or as sick-nurses, consists
in finding out which of them are so, and devising means of
arousing them.

The classification above given is of course a rough and im-
perfect one. The different faculties shade gradually into one
another, and embrace within the sphere of their action every
form of self-renunciation. Some part, for instance, of the faculty
called conscientiousness is at work when you act in obedience
to the routine of a household, or to the conventionalities of
society ; unless, indeed, submission to them has become so
thoroughly habitual and unreasoning as to be entirely the
gratification and in no sense the sacrifice of the impulse of the
moment.

252

APPENDIX.

2d, A moral and non-moral organ may be excited by the
same objects ; and the outward manifestation of the action of
the two is often so similar that it is difficult to distinguish
between them, even in one's self, and still more in another
person. Both may concur to induce a particular line of con-
duct. Who can tell, for instance, how much of his own or
another's fearlessness of action is due to trust in God, and how
much to self-confidence ? This same sort of alliance often takes
place between conscientiousness and order, between firmness
and combativeness, between hope and acquisitiveness, between
veneration and the instinctive love of parents, between bene-
volence and philoprogenitiveness, &c.

It is difficult, as I said, to distinguish between the action of
a moral and of a non-moral organ. But there is always this
radical difference, viz. , that, whereas the action of a non-moral
organ merely implies the yielding to an impulse or the exercise
of a faculty, the action of a moral one always supposes a will-
ingness to sacrifice something to an object of some sort.

Thus, order is the organ by which you perceive the beauty
of regularity. If your organ of order is large, you naturally
like to do things in an orderly manner, and feel uncomfortable
when they are not so done. But conscientiousness is always
more or less at work when you give up an employment which,
for the moment, you would prefer to continue, or make an exer-
tion, in itself disagreeable to you, for the sake of regularity.

The impulse to caress a child for the mere pleasure of doing
it, and apart from the thought of its pleasure, is philopro-
genitiveness. But the desire to comfort it, to see it happy, is
benevolence.

If you have certain organs at the back of your head large,
you will by instinct cling to the opinions of the teachers to
whom you are accustomed, and dislike to hear the contrary
ones expressed. But if you check a thought which arises in
your mind, or reject an opinion which you yourself would other-
wise be inclined to adopt, by the reflection that your parents
are more likely -to be right than yourself, your veneration is
more or less at work.

Combativeness is the impulse to resist outside influences

ON PHRENOLOGY.

253

merely as such. Firmness is the resolution to resist "both im-
pulses from within and influence from without for the sake of
a purpose (of any purpose whatever, good or bad).

Ideality is the power so to group together in one's mind
isolated points (either of form or of character) as to bring out
of them a mental image of a harmonious whole. Imitation is
the organ by which we select from the resources (material or
spiritual) at our command precisely those elements, not which
seem to us to possess any intrinsic superiority or attractiveness,
but which will best serve for the purpose of copying a pattern,
whether it exist as a material entity or only as an ideal in our
own imagination. Its exercise, therefore, often necessarily in-
volves somewhat of sacrifice, and always a great deal of surrender
of immediate impulses.

Phrenologists usually have not included imitation in the list
of religious organs ; I am unable to conjecture why. In point
of position, it lies between benevolence and trust ; and it is,
like them, in actual contact with veneration. In fact, in order
to exclude it, the makers of busts have been obliged to turn
in the imaginary line which bounds the so-called " religious
group" at a sharp angle. The Christian Scripture recognises
the effort to grow like God, to acquire certain qualities because
they are His, as being worship ; quite "as clearly so, I think, as
it does prayer or faith or charity. And no one, who has studied
the effect of example on children, can doubt that this organ
possesses a very high degree of vitalising power.

It is obvious that no one can possibly live a life much higher
than that of a sea-anemone without exercising in some measure
the 4 'moral" part of his brain ; without, that is to say, receiv-
ing some sort of moral culture. No matter how selfish may
have been your motive for originally choosing a certain plan of
life for yourself, the fact of sacrificing your subsequent impulses
for the sake of the rule which you have laid down, calls into
action your perseverance and conscientiousness. No matter
how purely intellectual may have been the process by which
you arrived at a belief in any law of nature, the act of sacri-
ficing an immediate and obvious benefit for the sake of the
greater benefit which you expect to receive through obeying

254

APPENDIX.

the law, is an act of hope. No matter how instinctive and
animal may have been at first the nature of your clinging to
your child ; you can hardly try to keep it alive, even for the
mere gratification of that clinging instinct, without some desire
"being awakened in you to make it happy, or at least comfort-
able. And that desire is benevolence.

We hear it said sometimes that such a man is " utterly
atheistic," or that such a womftn is 4 'utterly selfish." Both
are simply impossible phrenologically. No man or woman can
live without doing a variety of acts, the original motive for
which may indeed be purely selfish and godless, but the per-
forming of which necessitates putting the brain into a state
which is for the moment a state of devotion, and therefore
bringing the nervous system under the action of some feeling
of a moral and religious nature. The individual may not know
that this is so. But the thing actually is, whether we know it
or not.

And even the apparent anomalies of a character must often
conduce more or less to its education in a moral direction.
Suppose a child to have both combativeness and the organs of
family affection large ; cases will constantly arise in which his
two strong impulses will come into collision. At last one or
other of them will be more or less deliberately and consciously
sacrificed to the other. Therefore, either his firmness or his
veneration will be brought into play.

3d, Other things being equal, the nearer an organ lies to the
central organ (veneration) the greater its power of attracting
vitality directly from the outside; and the less therefore its
action needs, or uses, of vitality supplied from the other parts
of the brain or frame.

I say other things being equal. For the natural size of an
organ, its healthiness, and the regularity with which it has
been exercised, all tend to affect what we may call its "mag-
netising power " (its power, that is, of attracting vitality from
the outside). A great difference in size, healthiness, &c, may
suffice to more than counterbalance a difference of position.
A man may be in such a state of mind that the enjoyment of
music is more essential to his health and more soothing to his

ON PHRENOLOGY.

255

nerves, and even gives him a more vivid sense of the Presence
of God than any exercise of kindly feelings of which he is at the
time capable. His organ of tune is large, active, and healthy ;
his benevolence is small and inactive ; or perhaps has been
made morbid by some injudicious management in childhood,
or by the indulgence of abnormal and unwholesome sentimen-
tality in youth. Perhaps, too, he has been so accustomed to
think of music as connected with worship that the exercise of
tune naturally excites veneration itself more than does bene-
volence, which he has only used spasmodically and not in any
religious connection. Music may be to him really a more
religious exercise than benevolence, for the time being. Are
we to suppose, therefore, that listening to music will do for him
what an opportunity for showing kindness would do for a man
whose life had hitherto been spent in the exercise of active
charity? By no means. It is impossible that the organ of
tune can ever possess as high a magnetising power as benevo-
lence would do if it were in anything approaching to a healthy
condition. The main business of an educator is, in all cases,
to get into good working order those organs most especially
which are, from their position, most capable of being made to
exercise a good influence on the health. But when delirium is
threatening a patient, or when his life is in immediate danger,
the peculiarities of the actual case must often outweigh for the
time all general principles. You must then do, for the moment,
whatever is likely to prove most immediately beneficial ; and
put off till he is stronger any consideration about the course
which is most useful in the long run. You must excite what-
ever organ you find has at the moment most power to steady
his brain or to revive his strength.

4th, The organs which lie towards the front magnetise in a
different manner from those behind. In fact, each organ seems
to attract its own special kind of magnetism. Each does
something for the general health which no other could do ; and
the exercise of each in turn and under proper conditions is
beneficial. But the organs in front give a higher kind of
energy than those behind, and, in a highly civilised man, mag-
netise faster. But the exercise of some portion or other of the

256

APPENDIX.

back of the head is essential to even a moderate degree of
health. No amount of benevolence, veneration, or trust will
keep steady a character in which conscientiousness, firmness,
self-esteem, love of approbation, caution, &c, have all been
allowed to remain inactive. Whereas conscientiousness, if in
a state of healthy activity, may be made to supply in some
degree the place of all the rest. And this I mean not only in
guiding the actions, but also in bracing the nerves.

5th, Other things being equal, the sensibility of a patient to
human physical magnetism is in inverse ratio to the amount of
vital force supplied by means of the stomach and lungs. That
is to say, the more delicately you are framed, and the less you
eat and walk and live in fresh air, the more power a mesmeriser
will have to produce or change physical symptoms in you ; and
the more sensitive also you will be to the effect (pleasant or
the reverse) of the touch of particular persons. This is only
an approximation to a law. Habit and many other things
increase or diminish the sensitiveness to magnetism ; and
therefore I say other things being equal.

6th, Other things being equal, the susceptibility to human
mental influence, or "biology" (as it is technically called), is
in inverse ratio to the average amount of vital force supplied
through the brain.

Children are more subject to what is called " thought-read-
ing," i.e., to reproducing unconsciously the unspoken thoughts
of those about them, than adults. Stupid, idle, vacant-minded
men, or frivolous or self-indulgent women, are the readiest
victims of the biologiser. People who abstain from worldly
occupations and interests in the name of religion, but without
being tilled by any strong faith or purpose, commonly find that
their "spiritual state " (as they call it) depends on the " spiri-
tual state " of their pastor, and on the frequency and intimacy
of their relations with him. Any faith or purpose repels
biologic influence. The less earnest are led away by the more
earnest. Men of weak faith and idle minds make popes of men
of resolution and courage, and still more readily of men of
strong faith and great devotion ; whereas the latter are seldom
given to the setting up of human idols. Devout and studious

ON PHRENOLOGY.

257

Catholics do, it is true, maintain as a dogma the infallibility
of the far-off Pope who does not interfere with them except on
rare occasions. But devout and earnest men, whether Catholic
or Protestant, very commonly differ in opinion from the eccle-
siastical superior with whom they come into most immediate
contact ; and even from the saint whose character they most
reverence. Whereas weak and idle people, with a physical
craving for something to worship, but without any great faith
in God, fight in defence of the infallibility of their own particu-
lar confessor or preacher. Devotion and moral earnestness not
only give you biologic power over others, but they tend also to
enable you to resist the mental influence of others over your-
self. It is often observed that " anybody can wind an obstinate
man round his finger." The reason is, I suppose, that obsti-
nacy is compounded of much combativeness and little firmness ;
it gives therefore comparatively little brain-power, and leaves
the man an easy subject of biologic influence.

7th, The vitality imparted by a regular exercise of the brain
is of course more directly adapted to produce intellectual, that
supplied by the stomach to produce physical, vigour. Some
kinds of morbific influence are more repelled by the one, and
some by the other. But as all the nerve-centres are in direct
communication, any steady increase of power in either of them
is a gain to the whole system. No one who is afraid of infec-
tion should go into a fever-room ; and no one at all should go
in while he is fasting or over- tired. The depression of fear,
and that caused by want of food, alike increase the chance of
taking the fever, or rather diminish the resisting power, fear
being not an over- exercise of caution, but the impulsive and
unregulated action of caution unbalanced by trust, hope, &c.
On the other hand, a hungry child, and one who has just been
in a very naughty temper, are equally unlit for study, and
equally likely to be over-tired and injured by it.

8th, Other things being equal, the quicker and fuller the
pulse the greater is the power of the brain for receiving and
imparting vitality ; but the greater also is the waste going on
through the whole system, and the greater the need of a steady
supply. Semi-intoxication, therefore, is often apparently a

258

APPENDIX.

source of, in reality a condition favourable to, poetic inspira-
tion. Therefore, also, a fever is often a season of wonderful
intellectual and moral progress. But whenever a patient's pulse
is quicker and stronger than usual, you need to be especially
careful to keep up a constant sense of submission and trust ;
first, lest he should fly off at a tangent into some actively mis-
chievous vagary ; and, secondly, in order to prevent him from
wasting his strength, and being left in an exhausted condition
when the excitement is over.

9th, Strong excitement of any organ of the brain tends to
stimulate to action those nearest to it.

10th, Picture a set of telegraphic wires proceeding from a
common battery, and then imagine the electric spark jumping
backwards and forwards from one wire to another. I do not
know whether this is a scientifically correct analogy of what I
want to point out, but I think it will at least help to make
clear something which I can neither describe nor explain, but
which any one who is at all nervous or overworked must often
have experienced — a sensation as if thoughts were jumping
about in one's head, or as if two unconnected parts of the brain
were trying to work simultaneously or alternately, and each
interrupting the action of the other. Many people imagine
this painful and most injurious double action of the brain to
be due entirely to physical causes. This is a mistake. Phy-
sical weakness fosters it indeed ; but its causes are moral, or
rather immoral. The habits of mind which chiefly tend to
produce it are, I think, these : Duplicity ; intellectual exertion
under the pressure of fear ; a specially high order of intellectual
exertion stimulated by ambition ; allowing the mind to wander
purposelessly from one subject to another without a settled
plan or object ; indecision ; trying to do two things at once ;
allowing an idea to haunt one during work.

A little reflection is sufficient to show that a habitual sense
of reverence for one's duty and of trust in God would suffice
to eliminate almost entirely out of one's life these causes of
mischief.

There is another fruitful cause of the same evil, i.e., inter-
ruptions from without of a train of thought. But even this is

ON PHRENOLOGY.

259

less injurious if one steadily remembers that it is one's duty
not to let it distract one. As a matter of fact, many of the
most clear-headed men live a life of incessant interruption from
business callers.

Any one tolerably familiar with both phrenological analysis
and the details of Darwin's theory, would find it an interesting
task to try to trace out some of the steps by which the peculiar
circumstances of women, and the physical infirmities and faults
of character which result from those circumstances, have led
to their becoming more "religious" (or, as I would prefer to
say, more emotionally and consciously religious) than men
usually are.

Such an inquiry would be too long and intricate to enter on
here. It is sufficient to say, that when phrenologists assert
that one cannot use the moral and religious organs too con-
stantly, they do not mean that it is not possible to be too religious
in a conscious way. One's ideas on the subject become clearer
if one thinks of the moral organs as forming a sort of magnetic
lungs, standing in something like the same relation to the
brain and nervous system as the air-lungs do to the vascular
system.

It is possible, of course, to excite the lungs themselves, by
the direct application of stimulus, to irregular, spasmodic, or
over-violent action. Sometimes the congestion or torpidity of
one portion of the lungs throws too much work on the rest,
and makes them gasp restlessly and obtrusively. Moreover,
we cannot increase the real power of the lungs except by slow
degrees, by means of regular exercise persevered in steadily.
It sometimes happens that a person of delicate constitution,
having been ordered muscular exercise and bracing treatment
with a view to increase the receptive power of the lungs and
stomach, fancies that he can hasten this increase by subjecting
himself to an amount of exertion and of cold for which he is,
as yet, unfit. By so doing he temporarily excites the lungs ;
but the ultimate result is that he weakens the whole frame,
lungs included ; and thus, in the long run, diminishing instead
of increasing their power. He may even inflame and per-
manently injure the lungs. The most healthy condition is one

260

APPENDIX.

in which the whole lungs are at every moment in a state of calm
activity ; and in which the effect of every muscular exertion is
to produce a corresponding increase in the depth of the respira-
tions. This normal action of the lungs is spontaneous, and
accompanied by no consciousness of their action except on
occasion of unusually severe exertion. One great test of a
healthy regime is that it shall favour this normal action of the
lungs. A test of healthy treatment for an invalid is that it
shall steadily increase the capacity of the lungs and cause
them to take in more and more air per hour (see "Combe's
Physiology "). One great object of voluntary exercise of the
limbs is to increase the power of involuntary and unconscious
action of the lungs.

Which things are a parable. Man being, however, as to his
moral development, in a transition state, we should compare
our nerve-lungs not to our own air-lungs or stomach, but to
those of some lower animal. A few minutes of mere impulse
and self-will do not perceptibly harm us ; neither do a few
hours' smothering hurt a toad, or a few days' starvation a tiger.
A man possessed of strong animal vitality may drag on a half-
torpid existence for years, in a condition approaching to,
though never quite reaching, utter selfishness ; but no child
can grow up healthy who is not kept occupied about something
out of himself.

A Christian poet has very truly told us that communion with
God is our "vital breath" and our "native air." I cannot
help feeling tempted sometimes to ask certain preachers what
* they would think of a teacher of hygiene, who, not content
with impressing on his hearers the importance of keeping the
lungs active, insisted on putting children through a regimen
devised for the express purpose of making them immediately
conscious of the action of the lungs !

LIST OF BOOKS.

261

II

BOOKS SUGGESTED FOE THE FURTHER STUDY OF
SUBJECTS TREATED OF IN THIS VOLUME.

Science Primers. (Chambers. )

Responsibility in Mental Disease. By Mandsley. (King &:
Co.)

Life in Nature. By James Hinton. (King & Co.)
Thoughts on Health. By James Hinton. (King & Co.)
The Mystery of Pain. By James Hinton. (King & Co.)
Life and Letters of James Hinton. Edited by Ellice Hopkins.
(King& Co.)

Observations on Mental Derangement. By A. Combe.
Principles of Physiology. By A. Combe.
Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy. By A.
Combe.

The Constitution of Man. By G. Combe.

Elements of Phrenology. By G. Combe.

Origin of Species. Variation of Animals and Plants under

Domestication. By Darwin.
Descent of Man. By Darwin. (Murray.)

The history of the plant named Hero, in Chap. ii. of Darwin's
"Cross and Self-Fertilisation," is interesting as affording an
example of the apparently anomalous manner in which some
individuals are affected by causes which, in the majority of
cases, produce opposite results. The rest of the work is not
interesting except to botanists.

If one must read books written by Darwinians, which is a
very different thing from reading Darwin's books, I know none
better than —

Grant Allen's Evolutionist at Large.

,, Colin Clout's Calendar, &c.

262

APPENDIX.

For hints as to the true nature of exceptional and anomalous

cases —

Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. (Murray.)

For studies in true and tolerant philosophic criticism —

Dialogues Philosophiques. Renan. (Levy. )
Essais de Morale et de Critique. Renan. (Levy.)
Le Livre de Job. Renan. (Levy.)
Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse. Renan. (Levy.)

For Hahnemann's philosophy of the use of evils I regret to
say that I cannot refer my readers to any published work ex-
cept his "Organ on of Medicine." Nothing that I know of
in print is so like all that I used to hear from Hahnemann's
intimate friends, as James Hin ton's " Life in Nature" and
" Thoughts on Health."

NOTES.

Note i.

Respiration, though not in the strictest sense a voluntary
movement, is, to a certain extent, controlled directly by the
will.

Note 2.

It does not follow that fishes are wholly incapable of feeling.
Nature accomplishes the same end by different instruments in
different classes of beings.

Note 3.

The automatic convulsive movement produced by tickling is
one of the most exhausting forms of all physical exertion ; and
it is so, I suppose, for this reason, that the will or mind not
being aroused (that is to say, the outer brain not being excited),
the motive power has to be entirely generated out of the re-
sources of the automatic brain.

Note 4.

In the bust published by Dr. L. Fowler, the organs imme-
diately round Veneration are thus named : — Benevolence,
Imitation, Faith or Trust, Hope, Conscientiousness, and Firm-
ness or Perseverance. The organ of Imitation is not usually
included in the lists of " moral organs;" but the important
point to consider is, of course, the natural position of the
organs, not any artificial classification. The subject is more
fully discussed in the Appendix on Phrenology.

264

NOTES.

Note 5.

After explaining that mental activity and increased circula-
tion through the Drain are found to accompany each other,
Combe goes on to remark : — 4 'The well-known impulse given
to thought and feeling by wine and other stimulants, which
act chiefly by increasing the flow of blood to the brain, is but
another example of the operation of the same general law ; and
goes far to justify the opinion of Dr. Caldwell, that if it were
possible, without doing an injury to other parts, to augment
the constant afflux of healthy arterial blood to the brain, the
mental operations would be invigorated by it." — A. Combe's
" Physiology," ch. xiii.

Note 6.

Contagious fevers are the result of " specific germs." And
no doubt it will be a good thing to get rid of these germs as
soon as we have found out how to do so. But in the meantime
they may have their uses. No one who knows Darwin's works
needs to be told that great results for human progress are
brought about by the production of enormous numbers of
creatures of low type. And, moreover, it is not yet proved
that when we have obtained a complete mastery over con-
tagious fevers, we shall therefore have rid the world of the
condition called ' ' fever ; " nor that we should be any gainers
if we did get altogether rid of it.

Note 7.

On strictly Hahnemannian principles, smallpox and scarla-
tina should be treated, not as evils, but as heaven-sent oppor-
tunities for the elimination of chronic taints in the blood ; and
are dangerous chiefly because not so treated. According to
this view, the specific virus or ferment of each zymotic disease
is the true homoeopathic antidote to some kind of inherited
taint ; when medical science is more advanced and knows how
to use its weapons, no one will be the worse for an attack of
any eruptive fever ; and so far from outbreaks of epidemic
being considered as misfortunes, they will then be hailed as

NOTES.

265

occasions for ridding the community of ill- effects left by the
vices and errors of former generations. I had the honour of
being the patient by whose bed-side, and for whose benefit,
this startling application of the homoeopathic law was worked
out. Whether it was then really original, or whether the idea
had all along been in Hahnemann's mind, I do not know ; but
I have often heard my father relate that when he suggested it
in Hahnemann's presence, the old man sprang from his chair,
caught the speaker in his arms, and exclaimed, "Vous 6tes
mon vrai, mon cher disciple." It is certain that, under favour-
able circumstances and skilful treatment, eruptive fevers are
often more than merely harmless ; they produce a marked
improvement in health. But, with all due respect to the
illustrious leader and his enthusiastic disciple, it would seem
to me rather wild, at our present stage of progress, to set up
an anti-prophylactic or anti-vaccination propaganda, on the
strength of isolated instances of success in turning into good
apparent evil. A later student of homoeopathy suggested to
me an idea about fever which, if less thorough than the one
sanctioned by Hahnemann, appears, for the present, safer to
act on, viz., that fever itself is not a disease, but a crisis of
development which may be converted into an illness by any
accident, such as over-fatigue, a latent tendency to chronic
disease, bad hygienic conditions, or the presence of some specific
contagion. Gastric fever, for instance, he considered to be a
crisis of development in the individual complicated by indiges-
tion ; an epidemic he thought a sort of crisis of development
in the community, which has become complicated by the
presence of contagion, and which makes a favourable oppor-
tunity for the spread of contagion. He told me that many
people have genuine fever pure and simple, without any of
these complications ; the attack being sometimes accompanied
by the same kind of general languor and cessation of certain
physical functions as accompanies the change of skin in a
caterpillar; but often occasioning so little disturbance that the
individual is not aware of being ill. He thought it important
that the symptoms of development-crisis should be dis-
tinguished from those of disease, and that the former

s

266

NOTES.

should be as little as possible interfered with. [So far from
agreeing with the optimist view of infection favoured by
Hahnemann, he, I believe, considered that the presence of
any specific contagious poison in the system, even under the
most favourable circumstances, rather diminishes than increases
the good done by the pure fever crisis. For myself I cannot
pretend to have an opinion which theory of fever may be true.
But as affording a parallel to certain differences in the attitude
of moralists towards infanticide and other social evils, it is
interesting to notice the divergences among physical reformers.
There are those who propose to "stamp out" zymotic diseases
by precautions directed against those diseases themselves. There
are others, the " dreamers," the " derided" (are they indeed
the " mad blind men that see" ?) who think that lower forms of
life have no power over the higher if the latter be in a thoroughly
healthy condition ; that the germs of zymotic disease would not
develop in an absolutely pure constitution ; that infection is
only possible because of some deep, latent, inherited, perhaps
unknown and unsuspected, taint in the blood ; and that eruptive
fevers are blessings in disguise, because the process of throw-
ing off scarlatina or smallpox gives the doctor, if he knows his
business, a chance of helping the patient to throw off the in-
herited taint as well. It is strange to see how completely the
stampers-out of either physical or moral infection ignore the
force of opposition which is generated against them by the pre-
sence in the minds of some of their antagonists of this belief,
that visible infection is the heaven- ordained remedy for invisible
evil ; and that if we could stamp out one sort of infection, we
should only impose on Providence the necessity (so to speak)
of inflicting on us a severer remedy. (See "Life and Letters
of James Hinton," pp. 352-356.)

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